הרב אברהם מרדכי אלתר

Rav Avraham Mordechai Alter (7 Teves 5626/1865–Shavuot 5708/1948), known as the Imrei Emes after his sefer, published after his petirah, was the fourth Gerrer Rebbe, who led the largest chasidut in Poland for forty-three years. He was born in the town of Ger near Warsaw, firstborn of the Sfas Emes, Rav Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter; the first Gerrer Rebbe, the Chiddushei HaRim, was sandak at his brit and was niftar only months later. Married at fifteen, he became known as a great lamdan and masmid, and as a bibliographer whose library — tens of thousands of sefarim — was lost in the Holocaust. When the Sfas Emes was niftar suddenly in 5665/1905, he refused the mantle for four months, accepting it only on Shavuot of that year; like his father he sat at the middle of the tish and not at its head, took no money from chasidim, and supported himself in trade.

Under his leadership Ger grew until, by some estimates, more than one hundred thousand chasidim were bound to the court before the war. He set the spiritual order of his flock anew: Shacharit at the zman fixed by halachah, a break in the Shabbat davening for learning, and a call — in a letter of 5668 that stirred all Poland — for every chasid, even those pressed by parnasah, to fix a daily Gemara shiur between Minchah and Maariv. He founded the Mesivta of Warsaw in 5679/1919, placing Rav Meir Dan Plotzki and Rav Menachem Ziemba at its head, and Yeshivat Sfas Emes in Yerushalayim in 5685/1925.

Beyond Ger, he was among the founders of Agudat Yisrael and stood at the head of its Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah. When Sarah Schenirer opened the first Bais Yaakov class in 5678/1918, he gave his backing — “I would be glad if such a thing were done in my house” — and his chasidim went on to open Bais Yaakov schools across Poland. He lent decisive weight to Rav Meir Shapiro’s Daf Yomi: on the first night of Rosh Hashanah 5684, between Minchah and Maariv, he turned to the kehal and announced, “I am going in to learn the daf.” He labored for years to establish a charedi daily newspaper, visited Eretz Yisrael five times, and at his encouragement hundreds of families of his chasidim made aliyah.

In 5700/1940 he escaped occupied Poland with several of his sons and reached Eretz Yisrael, rebuilding Ger from Yerushalayim; his eldest son Rav Meir and all his descendants were murdered in Treblinka. He was niftar on Shavuot 5708/1948, during the siege of Yerushalayim, and was buried in the courtyard of the Sfas Emes Yeshiva. Three of his sons led Ger after him — the Beis Yisrael, the Lev Simcha, and the Pnei Menachem, who in 5756/1996 was buried beside his father beneath the ohel that stands in the yeshiva courtyard to this day.