Orthodox Jewish news media reported extensively on the death on Feb. 17 of Milwaukee native Rabbi Meir Tzvi (Stanley Martin) Schuster in Jerusalem. He was 71 and had long been suffering from Lewy body disease, a degenerative neurological disorder.
Schuster apparently had become legendary for his outreach efforts at the Western Wall, becoming known as “the man at the Wall.” He also was the founder of the Heritage House youth hostel in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem and of five Shorashim Heritage Centers in other parts of Israel.
Orthodox publications like The Jewish Press and Vos Iz Neias credit him with having led thousands of Jews to Orthodox religious observance.
Milwaukeean Gerald S Glazer, a member at large of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, was a close friend of Schuster’s when they were growing up on Milwaukee’s West Side in the 1950s. In a telephone interview Feb. 21, Glazer said they both attended the Hebrew school at Congregation Beth Jehudah.
Glazer confirmed other accounts that Schuster’s family — parents and two siblings — was not religious, and that Schuster on his own and under the inspiration of Rabbi Dr. Abraham Joshua Twerski decided to become observant.
Glazer also confirmed reports that Schuster was “a very shy boy” and “not articulate at all… Nobody who knew him then would guess that he would become known for going up to strangers” at the Western Wall and elsewhere.
Schuster studied at the Hebrew Theological College and Ner Israel Rabbinical College, receiving ordination at the latter. He married Esther Garfinkle of Monticello, N.Y., in 1967, and moved with her to Israel in 1968.
In addition to his wife, Schuster is survived by several children (different articles on the Internet say he had four or three surviving children, but they agree that one child died in a car accident) and many grandchildren.
The funeral took place in Jerusalem with burial on the Mount of Olives. A website devoted to documenting his work is rebmeirschuster.org.
Leon Cohen
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