Rabbi Yisroel Meir Altein, 1923-2009

By Eric Lidji August 24, 2009, 3:00 pm 0 Edit

Rabbi Yisroel Meir Altein, the spiritual mentor of the local Lubavitch community for more than 60 years, passed away Saturday, Aug. 22. He was 86.

Altein came to Pittsburgh in the late 1940s. He was one of the last emissaries, or shluchim, of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Around 1 p.m. Sunday, more than 200 people gathered outside of the Lubavitch Center on Wightman Street in Squirrel Hill to read psalms as the hearse stopped in front of the synagogue Altein helped build. Then, a 30-car procession drove down Murray Avenue and on to the Homewood Cemetery, where Altein was buried.

(A complete version of this story will appear in the Aug. 27 issue of The Jewish Chronicle. Readers are invited to contribute thoughts and memories about Rabbi Altein in the comments section of the Chronicle’s blog on Rabbi Altein.)

(Eric Lidji can be reached at ericl@thejewishchronicle.net.)