Rabbi Yisroel Dov Ber Odesser, known as "the Saba" (the grandfather) or "Baal HaPetek," was born in Tiberias under Ottoman rule, the son of Eizik Shlomo Odesser and Rivka Shindel, into a poor family of Karlin Chasidim belonging to Kollel Volhyn. His grandfather, a dayan and shochet in Odessa, had left his post to go up to the Land of Israel with his master Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk in the Chasidic aliyah of 5537. He was named after his great-uncle Yisroel Ber, a bookbinder, chazzan and shamash of Kollel Volhyn in Tiberias.

After his bar mitzvah he was sent to the Or Torah yeshiva headed by Rabbi Moshe Kliers. In a garbage bin in the courtyard he found a copy of Hishtapchut HaNefesh, a guide to personal prayer (hitbodedut), without its cover; he studied it and practiced its teachings without knowing who had written it, until a chasid snatched it from him, saying it was a forbidden Breslov book. This is how he drew close to Breslov. At seventeen he met Rabbi Yisroel Karduner (Halpern), a Breslover chasid from Safed, who became his guide, housed him and helped finance his wedding; Rabbi Mordechai Chaim Slonim, though a Slonimer chasid, found him lodgings. His father, opposed to his new path, threw him out of the house. He married Esther Mindel, daughter of Pinchas Cohen-Mohilever, and lived near his father-in-law in Safed. After Rabbi Karduner died in the epidemic of the First World War, he went to Jerusalem to learn from the elders of Breslov, then returned to Tiberias.

In 5682, after breaking the fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz, he said he found between the pages of a book a note, the "Petek," which he attributed to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, who had died more than a century earlier, and which contained the phrase "Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman." His opponents maintain that a chasid named Yoel Ashkenazi slipped the note into his books to comfort him. He kept it secret for some sixty years, telling only his children.

In 5717 he met Zalman Shazar, the future President of Israel, with whom he corresponded for years; thirty-two of his letters were published in the book Ibey HaNachal (5729). In his last years, living as a near-centenarian in an old-age home in Ra'anana, he revealed the Petek to new followers, mostly baalei teshuvah, who formed the "Na Nach" movement. He criticized the institutionalization of Breslov around rabbis, called those close to him "chaverim," and supported bringing Rabbi Nachman's remains to the Land of Israel. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who received him, wrote that he was "a gaon in Torah" and called for support in printing Rabbi Nachman's books. He raised funds to establish Keren Rabbi Yisroel Dov Odesser, which distributes those books at subsidized prices. Works: Ibey HaNachal, Likutei Emunah, Kitvei Rabbi Nachman MiBreslov.

He passed away in Jerusalem on 18 Cheshvan 5755 (October 23, 1994) and was buried on Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem, where hundreds of his chasidim gather every erev Rosh Hashanah. The village of Ibey HaNachal in Gush Etzion is named after him.