Early Life
Shechter was born in the Old City of Jerusalem to a prominent Breslover family headed by his father, Rabbi Dovid Shechter. During his youth in the Old City, Shechter learned from Breslov elders of the previous generation — especially Rabbi Abraham Sternhartz, who had immigrated to Israel from Uman, Ukraine in 1936.
The Shechter family was expelled from the Old City together with the rest of the Jewish population by the Jordanian army during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. They resettled in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem, where a Breslov yeshiva was founded. Later, the family moved again to the Meah Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem near the main Breslov yeshiva, which was founded in 1953.
Read more about this topic: Yaakov Meir Shechter
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Even today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don’t need parents’ full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“For me, the principal fact of life is the free mind. For good and evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity. A perpetually new and lively world, but a dangerous one, full of tragedy and injustice. A world in everlasting conflict between the new idea and the old allegiances, new arts and new inventions against the old establishment.”
—Joyce Cary (1888–1957)