Yaakov Aryeh Alter was born on 29 Iyar 5699 in Lodz, Poland, in 1939, to Rabbi Simcha Bunim Alter, also known as the Lev Simcha, who later became the sixth Gerrer Rebbe, and Yuta Henya, daughter of Rabbi Nehemiah Alter, his grandfather's brother. In 1940, he immigrated with his father and grandfather to Eretz Israel. He studied in the Talmud TorahEtz Chaim. For many years, he studied Torah at a synagogue known as Rashi Shtiebel in Bnei Brak. His full proficiency of all volumes of Sefer Mishnah Berura is well-known, and he describes himself as a student of the Chafetz Chaim, even though he never met him. He married Shoshana, daughter of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Weitz, one of the heads of Yeshivat Chiddushei HaRim.. Rebbi Alter is one of the wealthiest people in the ultra-Orthodox sector and in Israel in general, and is ranked third on the list ofthe richest rabbis in Israel, with a net worth of approximately NIS 350 million. His wealth came from his father, who invested in real estate before the establishment of the state. Among other things, he is one of the largest landowners in the settlement of Arsuf. Despite his wealth, he lived in an apartment in an ordinary residential building in the Chazon Ish neighborhood in Bnei Brak. In 2011, he moved to Jerusalem, in his apartment near the new synagogue, and his sons and son-in-law live in residential buildings, some of them sharing a common building in Bnei Brak. He has introduced significant innovations in the curriculum of the educational institutionsoperated by the Gerrer Hasidim in Israel and abroad — primarily broader knowledge of the expanse of the Talmud, while removing the learning of Iyun. He and his wife have five sons and four daughters.
Opposition
Rabbi Shaul Alter, a first cousin of Rabbi Alter is a fierce opposition of the Rabbi. When the Rabbi enforced the learning of Bekious instead of Iyun in the yeshivos of Ger, Rabbi Shaul resisted and still gave shiurim, until he was quashed by the establishment. In 2019 Rabbi Shaul Alter broke off from the Ger Dynasty and opened his own Kehillah where the yeshivos went back to learn Iyun, like its olden days.
