Yisroel Hager (the second)

Rabbi Yisroel was born in Tel Aviv to his father, Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Hager (1916-2012), the previous leader and Grand Rabbi of Vizhnitz followers in Bnei Brak, and to his mother, Rebbetzin Leah Esther. On June 2, 1963, at the age of 18, he married Rebbetzin Sarah Chaya Chana Twersky, the daughter of Rabbi Meshulom Zishe Twersky, previous Grand Rabbi of Chernobyl in Bnei Brak. Shortly after his marriage, he was appointed by his grandfather Grand Rabbi Chaim Meir Hager (1887-1972), to serve as a Rabbi of the Vizhnitz synagogue and a few years later, in 1972 (after his grandfather died and his father took over the leadership of the Vizhnitz Chassidim), he served as the Chief Rabbi of the Kiryas Vizhnitz neighborhood in Bnei Brak. In 1984, after complicated and tensed relationship between him and his parents and according to his father's orders, he was ostracized from his position as a Chief Rabbi and was exiled from the Vizhnitz neighborhood as well. In 1990, his father appointed instead of him as a Chief Rabbi of Kiryas Vizhnitz his younger brother, Grand Rabbi Menachem Mendel Hager. After nearly 18 years of boycott, and after Rabbi Yisroel was involved in a car accident, suffered from severe injuries and was hospitalized in a critical condition, his father agreed to visit him, and shortly afterwards, through the brokerage and help of his father's closest associates and his stepmother, the second wife of his father, Rebbetzin Sheindel, he eventually reconciled with his father and gradually paved his way back to his position as a Chief Rabbi and the main successor of his father's followers. In March 2012, after his father died, the overwhelming majority of his father's followers crowned him as their Grand Rabbi and spiritual leader.

Rabbi Yisroel Hager (born April 19, 1945), is one of the two current Grand Rabbis of Vizhnitz in Bnei Brak and a member of Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (Council of great Torah Sages) of Agudat Israel.