Eliyahu Chaim Rosen

Eliyahu Chaim Rosen (1899–1984) was a respected rabbi and leader of the Breslov Hasidim in Uman, Ukraine before World War II.

Later he said that what impressed him about the community was that the followers of Rebbe Nachman, who were obviously Hasidim, abided by all the halachot of the Shulchan Aruch without engaging in "Hasidic twists" or reinterpretations of the law.

Rosen decided to stay in Uman, however, after he heard that Rebbe Nachman had said, "The most difficult spiritual devotion is far easier than a simple physical transaction."

During World War I, Chazan was unable to leave the country and spent the time teaching and strengthening the Breslover community in Uman.)

Rosen displayed his commitment to his flock during a government-engineered famine in Ukraine engineered by Joseph Stalin's forced collectivization of agriculture (see Holodomor).

Rosen organized shipments from the bread lines in Moscow to the starving community in Uman, and also appealed to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee for assistance.

They were imprisoned, put on trial and faced the death sentence, but won an unexpected reprieve from by a sympathetic Jewish official in the Ministry of Justice in Kyiv.

Together with Rabbi Abraham Sternhartz, who had also immigrated to Jerusalem in 1936, Rosen led the Breslover community in Israel with warmth and dedication.

The problems didn't disappear, but Rosen was able to cut away all the surrounding anxieties and pressures and zero in on the one issue that the person needed to work on to improve his situation.