אין די מידיא איז געווען באריכטעט אז פינעף אין צוואנציג טויזענט האבען זיך באטליגט אין די לויה.
ליינט!!!
Viznitz grand rebbe's wife dies
By STEVE LIEBERMAN
KASER — Tens of thousands yesterday mourned the death of the wife of the Viznitz grand rebbe, packing the Hasidic Jewish community's main synagogue and streets during a funeral procession and burial ceremony.
Simi Mirel Hager, 76, died yesterday morning at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. She had been ill for the past year. She held the title rebbetzin as the wife of Grand Rebbe Mordechai Hager, a leader of the worldwide Viznitz Hasidim.
The rebbetzin's lineage included being New Square Grand Rebbe David Twersky's sister. Their father, the late Grand Rebbe Jacob Joseph Twersky, founded New Square in 1954 after leading his followers from the Soviet Union to Brooklyn after World War II and the Holocaust. Her late mother, Rebbetzin Trane Twersky, was known as the mother of New Square.
Rebbetzin Hager was known for her charitable work and opening up girls' schools in Kaser and other Viznitz communities in Brooklyn and New Jersey. She also tended to the spiritual and social needs of women in the community.
"She was a very very important person," said Kaser resident Aaron Feig of Chaverim of Rockland, a group that serves the community and does charity work. "She leaves a legacy of five generations of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren."
Her funeral drew close to 25,000 people from across Rockland, Brooklyn and elsewhere into the small village of Kaser, which is tucked inside Monsey.
"The kids in the schools were very important to her," Kaser Deputy Mayor Shlomo Koenig said. "She took a lot of interest in the girls' school and their education." Koenig, a Rockland Sheriff's officer, estimated 8,000 children alone attended funeral.
The rebbetzin's 11 a.m. funeral was held inside the Viznitz synagogue on Phyliss Terrace off Route 306.
The Viznitz Hasidim originated in Vizhnitsa, a rural village in the Carpathian mountains in the Ukraine. Like their New Square brethren, the Skvira Hasidim, they fled persecution after World War II and settled in Brooklyn before forming a community in Ramapo.
Community members yesterday worked with police to control traffic and close off streets leading to the synagogue, situated between Maple Avenue and Route 306. After the hour-long service, her casket was carried past the community's girls' schools, then up Route 306 to the Viznitz cemetery on Brick Church Road. She was buried within 24 hours before sunset in accordance with Jewish law.
Thousands of men joined the procession as women and girls watched from the roadsides. Mourners touched her simple wooden casket, a symbolic last favor to the rebbetzin that she will be remembered in heaven.
White Plains Journal News, NY
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