Written by Rabbi Dr. Levi Cooper – In 1965, Surah’le Hager (b. 1946) married Yissachar Dov Rokach (b. 1948). Surah’le was the granddaughter of the Vizhnitzer rebbe, Rabbi Hayim Meir Hager (1887-1972). Yissachar Dov was the leader-in-waiting of the Belz Hassidim, a position he would officially assume in 1966. The Belzer Rebbe and Rebbetzin did not have children immediately. It was only in 1975 – over 10 years after they were married – that Surah gave birth to their only child, Aharon Mordechai, today the heir apparent of Belz Hassidism. One imagines it must have been a difficult decade for Surah’le and Yissachar Dov. In addition to the desire to build a family, the young couple may have been conscious that the entire Belz community was looking to them to secure the future of this hassidic court in the post-Holocaust era.
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