Hebrew document signed by the Rebbe of Ger, R. Israel Alter. List of monetary donations from Gerer Chassidim of Tel-Aviv. Signed characteristically “Yisrael.”

ALTER, ISRAEL

(Jerusalem)

Shevat, 1959

R. Israel Alter (1885-1977) known today as the “Beth Yisrael” (after his book on the Chumash), was born in Poland. In the Holocaust-era his immediate family perished, although he himself managed to escape to Eretz Israel. There, he lived a somewhat solitary, stoic existence, while at the same time serving as Grand Rebbe to the thousands of Chassidim of Ger. He was known to have once mused that were his generation of a different nature, he would lead his followers in the style of the Kotzker Rebbe, who was notoriously demanding in terms of the spiritual expectations of his disciples. See Tz. M. Rabinowicz, The Encyclopedia of Hasidism (1996), pp.18-19