Kiryat Sanz, Netanya 2.02

Kiryat Sanz is a Haredi neighborhood located at the northwestern end of Netanya, Israel. Founded in 1956 by the previous Klausenburger Rebbe, Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam, who established his court here in 1960, Kiryat Sanz is the world center for Sanz-Klausenburg Hasidism. The Rebbe's son and successor, Rabbi Zvi Elimelech Halberstam, known as the Sanzer Rebbe, holds his court here.HistoryIn the 1950s, as the nascent State of Israel began building its population, the Klausenburger Rebbe — who had emigrated to the United States in 1947 after surviving The Holocaust and living in displaced persons camps — applied to the Israeli government for land on which to build a Hasidic settlement for Holocaust survivors. The Rebbe's goals in founding Kiryat Sanz were to restore the former glory of Sanz Hasidism that had been wiped out by the Holocaust, and to establish a model of Torah living which would illuminate the surrounding secular environs.Many Torah leaders counseled the Rebbe as to where he should establish his new community — some suggested the outskirts of Safed, others Beer Sheva, and still others Jerusalem. The Rebbe set up his own action committee, which recommended two sites on the Mediterranean coast in and around Netanya, and the Rebbe chose the land on the Netanya beachfront. According to Rabbi Eliyahu Shmuel Schmerler, rosh yeshiva of the Sanz yeshiva in Netanya and a long-time confidante of the Rebbe, "The Rebbe mentioned at the time that the day would come when people would not say 'Kiryat Sanz—that’s near Netanya,' but that 'Netanya was near Kiryat Sanz'".