Yankie Meyer eased the final journey for countless Jews — and never forgot the families they left behind

Photos: Naftoli Goldgrab, Hatzalah Museum

Yankie Meyer didn’t just organize chairs for shivah houses. While Misaskim, his brainchild, dives into action whenever a Jewish neshamah departs from This World, the list of initiatives was endless for this one-man chesed machine who, with discretion and dignity, was the consummate advocate for the needs of every Yid, in both life and on their final journey

Even as a young kid,

Yankie Meyer — young, energetic, and in a perpetual rush — was always eager to help out a fellow Yid. But he never forgot a lesson he learned when someone close to the family passed away, and there were many arrangements that had to be made.

“I came home from yeshivah, heard the tragic news, and immediately hurried over to the house of mourning to offer help,” he told Mishpacha in a wide-ranging interview a few years back. “I ran all the way there, then ran up six flights of stairs and entered the apartment breathlessly, with a splash. My father was standing there, and he looked up at me. ‘Nisht azoi kimt men arein tzi a niftar — that is not how one enters a house of mourning,’ with such haste, energy, and liveliness instead of with poise, dignity, and levelheadedness. He sent me back home.”

If the thousands of shocked, broken Yidden who attended Yankie Meyer’s levayah in Boro Park last Friday could tell his father one thing, it would be, “Yankie learned how to do it.”

While Yankie Meyer, who passed away last week at 58 after a ravaging illness, was the founder and director of Misaskim, just trying to list the other organizations and activities that kept him perpetually busy is an exercise in futility, because his reassuring presence could be found practically everywhere there was a need in Klal Yisrael.

For decades, he was Hatzalah’s “B-41”; he served as a chaplain in multiple law enforcement agencies, including the New York City and the Port Authority police departments, New Jersey Transit Police, the Office of the New York Medical Examiner, and the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office; and he was even a weekly Tomchei Shabbos volunteer… and the list goes on for this man who was the consummate advocate for the needs of Klal Yisrael at all hours of the day or night. Yankie’s huge heart and impeccable organizational skills combined to make him the ultimate public servant, a one-man chesed machine trusted by all, who not only cared for all Yidden during their lives, but also on their final journey.

The many reflections and stories that have been and will be written about Reb Yankie Meyer won’t do him justice, though, because how can mere words adequately describe all that this unstoppable individual accomplished in his lifetime?

“He utilized every tool in his toolbox, and he had so many of them,” says NYPD Lieutenant Yitzy Jablon. “He had a heart the size of the world, and no matter how sensitive the story, he was the go-between who knew what to say and how to say it to make everyone feel more comfortable.”