Tosh (Hasidic dynasty)

Hasidic dynasty from Tosh (Tash) in Hungary, based since 1963 in Kiryas Tosh, Boisbriand, Quebec

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Tosh (Tash)
Founded	Tosh, Hungary
Founder	Meshulam Feish Segal-Loewy (1821–1875)
Leader	Rebbe Elimelech Segal-Lowy
Headquarters	Kiryas Tosh, Boisbriand, Quebec, Canada
Type	Hasidic dynasty
Notes

Tosh (also Tash) is a Hasidic dynasty that began with Meshulam Feish Segal-Loewy (1821–1875) in the town of Tosh in Hungary. Its main centre since 1963 is Kiryas Tosh, an enclave in the municipality of Boisbriand, north of Montreal, Quebec, founded by his descendant Meshulem Feish Lowy (died 2015). The dynasty is now led by his son, Elimelech. Since the late 1990s the community and its institutions have been involved in a series of tax, planning and education cases in Canada.

History

Hungary

The historians David Biale and his co-authors place Tosh among the Hungarian offshoots of the Galician Zhidachov tradition, along with Spinka and Koson. According to their account, Meshulam Feish Segal-Loewy came from a non-Hasidic background. He studied at a modern high school and at non-Hasidic yeshivot in Hungary and was drawn to Hasidism as an adolescent. He became known as a miracle worker and took part in the struggle against Neology (Reform Judaism in Hungary). The Encyclopedia of Hasidism, edited by Tzvi Rabinowicz, calls him Meshullam Feivish Levi, "rabbi of Nyir Tas", and gives his year of death as 1871 rather than 1875. After his death his son-in-law, Yosef Ruttenberg (1853–1911), started his own court at Koson in Carpathian Ruthenia. The Encyclopedia of Hasidism has an entry on him as Joseph Halevi Rothenberg "of Krasnoye". It gives his dates as 3 Av 1853 to 23 Heshvan 1912 and says that he married Sarah Yitel, a daughter of Meshullam Feivish Halevi of Nyirtass, and became rabbi of Krasnoye in 1898, "where he established a hasidic dynasty". According to the same work, his son and successor Hayyim Shlomoh Rothenberg (1870–1920) was rabbi of Nir Adani and Debrecin before moving in 1911 to a town the entry spells "Maszokaszowy".

The Koson line is described as "an offshoot of Zhidachov and Tosh". One of its descendants, Yesha'ayah Meshulam Feish Rothenberg, was born in Brooklyn in 1966. In 2014 he opened a study house in Beitar Illit and has since been known as the Rebbe of Ruzla. Beitar Illit is an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. In 2024 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Israel's settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem "have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law".

Meshulem Feish Lowy

The Jewish Press describes Meshulem Feish Lowy as the son of Mordechai Segal Lowy, whom it calls "the third Rebbe in the Toshe dynasty". The sources differ on where he was born: The Jewish Press gives Demetch, Hungary, while the Quebec newspaper Le Veil gives Tosh, in 1921. He survived the Holocaust. According to The Jewish Press, he served in the Hungarian Labour Service until he was liberated by the Red Army in 1944. After the war his father's surviving Hasidim proclaimed him Rebbe. In 1946 he married Chava Weingarten. She died in 1996, and he remarried in 2007.

He emigrated to Canada in 1951 and first established a community in Montreal. The community's own website says that he and his followers settled in the Mile End area of the city. It says the decision to leave Montreal was taken to escape what they saw as the city's worsening moral climate.

Kiryas Tosh

According to The Jewish Press, Le Veil and the community's website, the move to Boisbriand took place in 1963 with the help of a loan from the federal government. The Journal de Montréal gives 1961 and CBC News gives 1962. The website puts the enclave about 25 kilometres north of Montreal, around Beth Halevy Avenue. It says that 18 families moved there at first.

Published population figures vary. The community's website gives about 3,000 people in close to 250 families on one page and "some 300 families" on another. L'Écho de la Rive-Nord reported about 3,000 Hasidim in 2014, as did CBC News in 2020, while the Journal de Montréal put the number at nearly 5,000 in 2012. The Encyclopedia of Hasidism (1996) counts Tash among the four largest Hasidic groups in Montreal, with Lubavitch, Satmar and Belz. It says the Boisbriand centre, "some eighteen miles north of the city" and established in 1963, numbered 120 families by 1994. The website lists yeshivas, schools, ritual baths, shops and an ambulance service among the community's institutions. It reports that in 1995 the community appeared to support the Quebec sovereignty side in the referendum, unlike the organised Montreal Jewish community.

Since 2015

Meshulem Feish Lowy died on 12 August 2015. The Jewish Press gives his age as 95, while the Israeli site Haredim 10 gives 93. The town of Boisbriand closed streets to parking and ran a shuttle service for the thousands of mourners expected. His son Elimelech, who lives in Kiryas Tosh, succeeded him and addressed the Hasidim during the week of mourning.

Outside Quebec, Tosh synagogues and institutions are registered in Williamsburg, Borough Park, Monsey, Spring Valley and Monroe in New York State, and in Stamford Hill, London (see Charities and trustees).

Rebbes

Rebbes of Tosh

Rebbe	Dates	Seat	Notes
Meshulam Feish Segal-Loewy	1821–1875	Tosh	Founder.
Mordechai Segal Lowy	—	Tosh	Called "the third Rebbe in the Toshe dynasty" by The Jewish Press.
Meshulem Feish Lowy	1921 (Le Veil)–2015	Montreal (from 1951); Kiryas Tosh, Boisbriand (from 1963)	Son of the above; proclaimed Rebbe after the Second World War.
Elimelech Segal-Lowy	—	Kiryas Tosh	Son of the above; succeeded in 2015.

Legal cases

No criminal conviction for sexual abuse, fraud or money laundering involving the dynasty's rebbes or its registered institutions was found in the court records and press reports consulted. The cases below are civil, administrative and rabbinical-court proceedings, followed by allegations that have not resulted in a reported conviction.

Civil cases

Revocation of the Collège Rabbinique's charity registration

Collège Rabbinique de Montréal Oir Hachaim D'Tash was a registered charity based in Boisbriand. Revenue Canada audited its accounts for the year ended 31 December 1995. In its audit letter the department said that the charity had paid personal expenses for particular people, including a car, nursing services and credit card payments. Under the heading of loans to non-qualified donees, it said it had found more than $20 million paid to another organisation. About $16 million of this had come back, leaving more than $4 million owed to the charity on a loan that bore no interest and had no repayment terms. The letter also said that a cheque for $150 had gone to partisan political activity.

The Minister of National Revenue issued a Notice of Intention to Revoke the registration on 3 March 2000. The Federal Court of Appeal (Décary, Létourneau and Nadon JJ.A.) dismissed the charity's appeal with costs on 9 March 2004, in Collège Rabbinique de Montréal Oir Hachaim D'Tash v. Canada (Minister of the Customs and Revenue Agency), 2004 FCA 101. The court found sufficient grounds for revocation on which the charity had been given a full opportunity to respond:

• it had issued official donation receipts for amounts that were not gifts;
• not all of its resources were devoted to charitable purposes;
• it had not kept proper books and records;
• it had made loans to non-qualified donees and loans that were not at arm's length.

The court noted that the charity had not been given a chance to respond to some of the other grounds in the notice. The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the charity's application for leave to appeal, with costs, on 30 September 2004. The CRA register records the registration as "Revoked-Audited" with effect from 16 October 2004. In a 2005 review of the case, the Canadian charity law firm Carters noted that the CRA had published a news release about the revocation on 15 October 2004.

Municipal and school taxes

In April 2012 the Journal de Montréal reported two disputes over unpaid taxes.

• In July 2011 the Commission scolaire de la Seigneurie-des-Mille-Îles sued four organisations based in the enclave for nearly $100,000 in unpaid school taxes. According to the board, the community had recently begun to repay the debt.
• The community owed the town of Boisbriand more than $1.5 million in unpaid water taxes, in a dispute dating from 2005. Three judgments had gone in the town's favour, and the community had appealed. It argued that its religious buildings could not be taxed in this way.

The final outcome of these cases is not reported in the sources consulted.

Girls' school in an agricultural zone

In May 2014 Boisbriand council instructed its lawyers to apply to the Superior Court of Quebec to stop a private house on chemin de la Rivière-Cachée from being used as a school. Dozens of girls from the community were attending it daily, and the house is in an agricultural zone where institutional use is not allowed. Town inspectors had been refused entry. The owner was also contesting statements of offence in the municipal court. The Quebec education ministry said that no private school was recognised at that address. The outcome is not reported in the sources consulted.

Lowen and Wasserstein v. Attorney General of Quebec

Yochonon (Yohanan) Lowen and his wife, who grew up in Tash and left in 2010, brought a civil action against the province and the community. They asked the Superior Court of Quebec to declare that Quebec had failed in its duty to ensure that children in the community's religious schools received a secular education. CBC News names his wife as Shifra Lowen and the Montreal Gazette as Clara Wasserstein. The trial heard that the ministry had known for decades that the schools operated without permits. It also heard that about 830 children in Tash were by then registered for home schooling under the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board. Marie-Josée Bernier, an employee of Quebec's youth protection service (DPJ), testified that when the service investigated complaints about the community's schools in 2014, it found that 280 of the 320 boys assessed were in a situation of "educational neglect". She said that the service had persuaded parents to sign an agreement to teach mathematics and English at home, and that by 2017 the school board was following only about 100 boys.

In a decision dated 3 December 2020, Justice Martin Castonguay refused to make either declaration. He declined to declare that Quebec had failed to enforce its laws, or that the schools, which the Gazette describes as operated by members of the Tosh community, were operating in breach of Quebec's education laws. The plaintiffs' lawyers, Trudel Johnston & Lespérance, say that the judgment found that the plaintiffs had not received the education they were entitled to, and that it criticised Tash community leaders for resisting government efforts. They also say that the plaintiffs decided not to appeal. The action had been filed on 11 May 2016 against the Attorney General of Quebec, the school board, several Hasidic schools and organisations of the community, and Rabbi Elimelech Lowy. No damages were sought.

Property-tax exemption

The Centre communautaire religieux hassidique (Hassidic Religious Community Centre), which holds the community's buildings, applied for exemption from municipal and school property taxes on its synagogue, presbytery, childcare centre and boys' and girls' schools. The Tribunal administratif du Québec refused, but the Court of Quebec and the Superior Court granted the exemption. On 20 October 2023 the Court of Appeal of Quebec dismissed the town of Boisbriand's appeal in Ville de Boisbriand c. Centre communautaire religieux hassidique, 2023 QCCA 1301. It held that the exemption for religious institutions must be read broadly. On 6 June 2024 the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed Boisbriand's application for leave to appeal, with costs (file 41046). The mayor of Boisbriand, Christine Beaudette, said the centre was in reality a property portfolio, and the town called on the Quebec government to narrow the definition of a religious institution.

Rabbinical-court travel ban on the Tosh dayan of Monsey

Avraham Katz, head of the rabbinical court (av beis din) of the Tosh community in Monsey, had granted a heter meah rabbanim (a dispensation allowing a man to take a second wife) to a Satmar man who had refused his wife a religious divorce for about ten years. According to the Israeli site Haredim 10, the Great Rabbinical Court in Jerusalem held that there was reasonable ground to believe Katz's actions had directly helped the husband to keep his wife an agunah. It barred Katz from leaving Israel while it heard evidence, and extended the order several times. Katz's petition to the High Court of Justice against the order was dismissed. The husband granted the divorce in Brooklyn on 10 December 2024. The order was lifted that day, and Katz recovered his passport and bail money and left Israel.

Allegations

On 21 November 2024 Avraham Katz (see above) was arrested by Israeli police at Ben Gurion Airport while trying to board a flight in breach of the rabbinical court's travel ban. The Great Rabbinical Court placed him under house arrest after 600,000 shekels and his passport were deposited. The wife's lawyer, Elad Zamir, said Katz had been arrested for using a forged passport and breaching a judicial order. No criminal charge is reported in the sources consulted.

On 10 October 2020, during COVID-19 restrictions, police and public health officials broke up a gathering of about 400 people in a synagogue in Boisbriand, and the crowd outside grew to about 1,000. Police issued 16 citations for public health violations and arrested one person for assaulting a police officer and obstruction; that person was released. A spokesman for the Council of Hasidic Jews of Quebec described the assault as minor.

The community's website says that in 1999 25 Revenue Canada agents and an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided the community. It says the agency alleged that the Collège Rabbinique had issued greatly inflated tax receipts in exchange for donations. The website adds that the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency later found that the college had not engaged in any wrongdoing. No criminal charge arising from the raid is reported in the sources consulted. The college's charity registration was revoked on the grounds set out above, and the courts upheld the revocation.

Charities and trustees

United Kingdom

A search of the Charity Commission for England and Wales register for "Tosh" returns two charities linked to the dynasty.

Congregation of Tosh London Ltd (registered charity 1196025; company 13467461) is a charitable company in Stamford Hill.

• Its object is to advance the Orthodox Jewish faith, in particular by running "a synagogue for the Tosh community in North London".
• It was incorporated on 21 June 2021 and registered as a charity on 1 October 2021. Its register address and registered office are both 1 Fairholt Road, London N16 5EN.
• Its trustees are Joel Teller (chair), Abraham Anthony Samuel Stern and Abraham Gratt. The three are also its directors at Companies House, and Gratt is company secretary.
  • Stern is a director of Chaim Charitable Company Limited, Kalev Gemach Limited and five other companies.
  • Gratt is a director of seven other active companies, several of them property companies.
  • Teller has no other appointments on record.
• It reported income of £977.44k for the year to 30 June 2022, almost all of it donations. Its income for the year to 30 June 2025 was £65,875, and its returns are up to date.
• Companies House shows an active proposal to strike the company off the register and an overdue confirmation statement.

J & R Charitable Trust (registered charity 1097875), formerly Beis Hamedrash Pe'er Meshulem D'Tosh, is a trust based at 4 Cazenove Road, London N16 6BD.

• Its objects are general charitable purposes, "in particular for the support of Tosh institutions throughout the world".
• It was registered on 9 June 2003 and is governed by a declaration of trust dated 3 July 2001.
• Its trustees are Sammy Landy, Rivko Fekete and Jacob Fekete.
  • Jacob Fekete is also a trustee of Yetev Lev London Jerusalem Trust and the British Jewish Heritage Society.
  • Landy is also a trustee of the British Jewish Heritage Society.
• It reported income of £330,592 and spending of £290,917 for the year to 30 June 2025.
• Its returns for the year to June 2022 were filed 37 days late.

Canada

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) list of charities includes the following organisations with Tosh or Tash names. Searches for "Tash" and "Tosh" also return many unrelated organisations, which are left out, as are Tashbar and Canadian Friends of Tashbar.

Canadian charities with Tosh or Tash names (CRA list)

Organisation	Status	City	Effective date of status
Association Gemilas Chesed Keren Rabbini Meshilim Feiysh de Tash	Registered	Montreal	4 September 2018
Collège Rabbinique de Montréal Oir Hachaim D'Tash	Revoked (audited)	Boisbriand (listed as "Boisrand")	16 October 2004
Communauté des institutions Tosh / Kehilas Mosdos Tosh	Registered	Boisbriand	2 October 2022
Kehilas Tosh	Revoked (failure to file)	Boisbriand	7 November 2020
Kollel Tosh	Revoked (failure to file)	Boisbriand	21 June 2025
Maison Elimelech D'Tosh / Ohel Elimelech D'Tosh	Registered	Montreal	1 January 2023
Tasher Congregation	Revoked (failure to file)	Boisbriand	11 June 2011

United States

The organisations below carry the Tosh or Tash name and are recorded in IRS data published by ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer. All are recorded with the IRS foundation code for churches. Hatzolah Tosh Inc is the only one with a Form 990 on ProPublica: for 2019 it reported revenue of $111,037 and expenses of $107,150.

US tax-exempt organisations with Tosh or Tash names

Organisation	EIN	Address (register)	IRS ruling
Cong Beis Hamedresh Tosh	11-3539294	4615 14th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11219	June 2000
Cong Paer Meshulom Tash	38-4025298	144 Wilson St, Brooklyn, NY 11211	September 2017
Cong Zichron Ohel Elimelech Tosh Inc	03-0526805	146 Maple Avenue, Spring Valley, NY 10977	February 2004
Congregation Keren Nesiyen Ateres Mordechai D Tosh	88-0662490	144 Wilson Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211	April 2023
Congregation Mosdosh Tash	11-3576670	668 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11249	October 2001
Congregation Rabbi Meshulam Feish Of Tosh	84-3098738	19 Hilltop Pl, Monsey, NY 10952	May 2020
Hatzolah Tosh Inc	82-0639848	240 Bates Dr, Monsey, NY 10952	June 2017
Kehilas Tosh	82-1993724	668 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11249	July 2017
Mosdos Tosh Bp	99-3194482	4615 14th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11219	June 2024
Mosdos Tosh Canada	41-4543393	2 Penny Ct, Monroe, NY 10950	March 2026
Tosh Monsey	47-5018745	PO Box 1079, Monsey, NY 10952	September 2019
Yeshiva Gedolah Of Tosh Inc	42-2257269	541 State Route 17M, Monroe, NY 10950	June 2026

Israel

A search of the Israeli Registrar of Associations for "טאהש" (Tahash) returns one association: Mosdos Tahash (מוסדות טאהש, 580240265). It was registered in Jerusalem on 17 October 1995 to set up a yeshiva gedola and a yeshiva for younger students, and has since been struck off. A search for "טאש" returns nothing.

See also

• Spinka (Hasidic dynasty)
• Satmar (Hasidic dynasty)
• Kiryas Tosh
• Hasidic dynasties