Mordechai Yissachar Ber Leifer

Mordechai Yissachar Ber Leifer (; 19554 October 2020) was the third Rebbe of the Pittsburgh Hasidic dynasty. Born in the United States, he joined his father, Grand Rabbi Avraham Abba Leifer, in Ashdod, Israel, to serve as rosh yeshiva of a new Pittsburgher yeshiva in that city in 1981. After succeeding his father as Rebbe, he expanded the Hasidic presence in Ashdod with new schools and institutions, and increased the number of Pittsburgher families to nearly 200 in Ashdod. He also shepherded Pittsburgher Hasidim in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Beit Hilkia, New York City, and California. An accomplished Torah scholar and musical composer, he led the Hasidut for three decades until his death in 2020. Early life and family Mordechai Yissachar Ber Leifer was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1955. Leifer traced his paternal ancestry to Rabbi Mordechai of Nadvorna, the founder of the Nadvorna dynasty, who was the great-grandson of Grand Rabbi Meir the Great of Premishlan, a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov. At the time of his birth, his father was teaching Torah and Hasidut and eventually founded a Hasidic yeshiva in Newark. He also studied in the Telshe Yeshiva in Cleveland, Ohio. And in the Lakewoo