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R. Menachem Mendel Hager (b. 1957) is one of the two Grand Rabbis of the Vizhnitz Hasidic dynasty in Bnei Brak and a current member of Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (Council of great Torah Sages) of the Agudat Yisrael movement. R. Mendel was born in Israel to R. Moshe Yehoshua Hager, the previous spiritual leader of the Vizhnitzer Hassidim and to Rebbetzin Leah Esther; the daughter of R. Menachem Mendel Paneth of Deyzh who perished in the Holocaust, and after whom R. Mendel was named. He is the youngest of six siblings. As a child, he received his education in the Vizhnitz educational institutions. About a year after his Bar Mitzvah, he traveled to the United States to study in the Skverer Yeshiva. In 1976, he married Rebbetzin Miriam, daughter of R. Avrohom Dovid Horowitz (deceased) who served as the Chief Rabbi of the Ultra-orthodox community in Strasbourg, France, and later as a member of the Edah HaChareidis in Jerusalem. There was a period of tension between R. Mendel and his older brother R. Yisroel Hager on the issue of leadership of their father's followers, and over the inheritance. In 1984, their father, R. Moshe Yehoshua Hager, removed the older brother R. Yisroel from his main post as Chief Rabbi of Vizhnitz, and expelled him from the Vizhnitz community as well. In 1990, on the orders of R. Moshe Yehoshua, R. Mendel was crowned to serve as a Chief Rabbi of The Vizhnitzer Hassidim and also was destined to become his father's heir and to take over the leadership. In 2002, the older brother, R. Yisroel, returned to Vizhnitz and was given back his post and reconciled with his father. The overwhelming majority of the Hassidim supported R. Yisroel, and only a few hundred families followed R. Mendel who decided to separate from his brother's community and establish his own community. In 2009, he founded his synagogue and Yeshiva on Shlomo Hamelech Street, which is located near the Vizhnitz neighborhood. In March 2012, after his father died, R. Mendel was officially crowned as a Grand Rabbi of his community of a few hundred families. Despite the dispute in the past, the two brothers currently maintain a good relationship and attend each other's family events.

 

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