The Synagogue, Beis Medrash Beis Shmuel (Rav Chuna’s), 169-171 Golders Green Road in London is named after the author of this book.
Rabbi Shmuel Engel of Radomysl was said to be one of the greatest Chassidic scholars of the interwar years. He was born in Tarnow, and his father, a Chassidic Rabbi died when he was an infant. His mentor was the Admor of Sanz, Rabbi Chaim Halberstam. Rabbi Shmuel was renowned for his scholarly arguments and generally adopted a lenient approach, particularly in regards to the Agunah problem of hundreds of women who were left after the First World War without definite evidence of their husband’s deaths. he was a prolific writer, and six previous volumes of this work were published in Europe. Rabbi Engel passed away on the 19th of the month of Adar Alef, 1935.
His grandson, Rabbi Chune Halpern was born in Kosice on 25 Kislev, 1922, His mother was a daughter of Rabbi Shmuel Engel, and Rabbi Chune had studied under his grandfather until 1935. Then he studied under Rabbi Yissachar Pardes. Rabbi Chune came to London in 1939, and became close to the Shatzer Rebbe, Rabbi Shalom Moskowitz. In 1942 he married Hena Chaya Lidzerovsky, originally from Frankfurt. Towards the end of the Second World War he moved to 171 Golders Green Road, where eventually two adjoining houses were converted into a purpose built Synagogue. This Synagogue, Beth Shmuel is open all day for prayer with continual minyanim (groups of a minimum of ten men for services).
Rabbi Halpern edited and published the seventh volume of his grandfather’s rabbinical decisions – this book of 200 questions and answers – in 1954, and an eighth volume in 1958.
He was one of the founders, together with the Sassover Rabbi, of the orthodox Jewish Pardes House Schools, named after his rebbi, Rav Yissochor Pardes. In 1984, after the passing of Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld, he became President of the Hisachdus Kehillas Hachareidim – the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations. He died in 2015.
This list of subscribers who financed publication of this book is interesting and reproduced below. They include:
Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld
Osias (Yehoshua) Freshwater
Abba Bornstein
Getzel Berger
Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Ferber
Rabbi Shmelke Pinter
Shalom Tzvi Berger
Leibish Lempel
Joseph Issacharoff
and others:
Jewish Miscellanies 