Naftali Halberstam, 74; Led Bobov Hasidic Sect After Father’s Death

Grand Rabbi Naftali Halberstam, 74, who took over as head of the Bobov Hasidic sect after the death of his father five years ago, died Wednesday at a hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y.

He became head of the sect, which has its roots in the town of Bobova in what is now southern Poland, after his father, Grand Rabbi Solomon Halberstam, died Aug. 2, 2000, at the age of 92. The elder Halberstam was credited with reviving the sect in New York after it was devastated by the Nazis during World War II.

The younger Halberstam was born in Poland. The father and son, descendants of one of the first Hasidic leaders in Europe, escaped death at the hands of the Nazis, but family members and many of the sect’s followers died in the Holocaust.

After the war, Solomon Halberstam vowed to rebuild the sect, and he and his son moved with a handful of followers from Europe to New York. They settled in Brooklyn, where the sect has flourished.

Estimates of the number of followers of the Bobov sect vary widely. At the time of Grand Rabbi Solomon Halberstam’s death, the New York Times reported the number ranged from 20,000 to as many as 100,000, with members concentrated in New York, Montreal, Toronto, Miami and London.