Chaim Yehoshua Halberstam (Hebrew: חיים יהושע הלבערשטאם), also known as Chaim Shia Halberstam, is a Hasidic Jewish rabbi and the Grand Rabbi of the Satmar community in Monsey, New York.[1] He is a son-in-law of the late Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, and a direct descendant of the first and second Rebbes of Bobov.
Halberstam was born to Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Halberstam,[1] the orphaned son of Rabbi Chaim Yehoshua Halberstam, the son of the second Rebbe of Bobov, Rabbi Ben Zion Halberstam. The first Rabbi Chaim Yehoshua Halberstam was arrested by the NKVD during World War II and died of starvation in the Tashkent prison on 19 November 1944, leaving a young wife, Leika, and two sons, Yaakov Yosef and Boruch Duvid.[2] The orphaned family eventually moved to America,[2] where Yaakov Yosef grew up to name his own son and his synagogue, K'hal Chaim Yehoshua of Boro Park, Brooklyn, New York,[1][3] after his father.
Halberstam was also the great-great-grandson of the first Rebbe of Bobov, Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam. His mother's maiden name was Teitelbaum; she was a descendant of the Sighet Hasidic dynasty from which the Satmar dynasty originates.
He married Hendy, the daughter of Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum (1914-2006) and Pessel Leah Teitelbaum (1922-2010).[1]
Until the death of the late Rebbe of Satmar, Halberstam was the Rav of the Satmar synagogue, VaYoel Moshe, in Monsey,[4] av beth din (head of the rabbinical court), and principal of the Satmar yeshiva in Monsey.[5]