Hungarian Hospitality

How Reb Shayale’s descendants welcomed 35,000 visitors to his historic house in Kerestir

Rebbe Shayale Kerestirer fed every lost, broken, or wandering Jew who came to town, serving up miracles of salvation for dessert. A century later, travelers from around the world are partaking of the blessings

Rabbi Mendel Rubin remembers the first time he went to visit the tziyun of his great-great-great grandfather, Rabbi Yeshaya Steiner ztz”l, known to the world as Reb Shayale of Kerestir.

Growing up, Reb Mendel’s father, Rav Shaye Rubin, the Kerestirer Rebbe in Williamsberg, traveled every year to northeastern Hungary to mark Reb Shayale’s yahrtzeit on the third day of Iyar. But it was only in 2003 that 18-year-old Mendel joined his father on the pilgrimage, making his first trip to the village of Bodrogkeresztúr, better known as Kerestir.

Even now, two decades later, he can still remember his father’s tear-stained face as they approached Reb Shayale’s ohel.

“Everything you are going to beg and be mispallel for, you are going to have, so don’t hold your tears in,” he told his son.