Yaakov Horowitz

Yaakov HaLevi Horowitz (1750-1803) was an early Polish-Hungarian Hasidic rabbi and the eldest son of Shmelke Horowitz of Nikolsburg, and brother of Zevi Joshua Horowitz.

Biography
Born in 1750 in Mezhyrichi, Ukraine. When his father accepted the position of Chief Rabbi of Moravia in 1773, Yaakov decided to stay in Poland, where he had been learning under Elimelech of Lizhensk. Yaakov was forced to migrate to Hungary in 1775 after getting into an altercation with a local bandit leader in the middle of a forest in Poland. Yaakov had reportedly induced the bandit to have a friendly drink and then smashed the bottle directly into the face of the bandit. He escaped but quickly found out that the bandit whom he had killed was a powerful bandit chief whose power and authority was unchallenged in that province, and that his life would be worth nothing if he stayed in Poland. When he arrived in Hungary he held a rabbinic position in Szolnok, where he introduced Hasidism to the city, which soon became a hub for the Hasidic movement in Hungary. Yaakov has two children, his oldest, Rabbi Shmuel Shmelke Horowitz, became a prominent rabbi in Dresden and is the grandfather of Eliyahu Shlomo HaLevi of Lyde. His younger son, Rabbi Izaak Horowitz, known as "Reb Izaak Morenu", held a rabbinic position in Abádszalók and is a paternal ancestor Regina Margareten.