The funeral for Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua (Moshelle) Hager (z”l) was delayed until a short time ago to allow people from outside of Israel arrive. Arutz Sheva presents a video of the rabbi in happier times.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel “has lost a dear rabbi who was an example and leader to the country and who stood behind one of the largest and most important Jewish communities in the Jewish world.”
He told Deputy Education Minister Menachem Eliezer Moses, “Vizhnitz chassidim educated thousands of students of Torah who have continued their spiritual inheritance of many generations. The death of Rabbi Hager is a great loss to all of the People of Israel.”
Knesset Speaker Reuben Rivlin stated, “Rabbi Hager will be remembered as one who raised the Vizhnitz chassidic sect from the ashes of the Holocaust and restored it in the Land of Israel. The rabbi always emphasized in conversation the important of education and his saying was, “Education, Education, Education. Education is before everything else.”
Rabbi Hager’s oldest son, Rabbi Yisroel Hager, is now the de facto leader of Vizhnitz.