Before WW II, he served as rosh yeshiva in Hungarian town of Satmar (Satu Mare, Romania). The Nazis arrested him and his entire family in 1944. The family was deported to Auschwitz, where only R. Moses Aryeh survived; his wife and all of his nine children perished at the hands of the accursed Nazis.

In 1951 he moved to Jerusalem, where he became the Rav of the Satmar community. In 1979, he was elected av bet din of the Eidah, a position which he held until his passing. He wrote Ateres Yehoshua, and he himself was also referred to with this name occasionally. He left no children.