Rabbi Yisroel Spira, the Bluzhover Rebbe, was born in November 1889 in Rzeszów, Galicia, the son of Rabbi Yehoshua Spira of Ribititch, author of Keren Yehoshua, and a descendant of the Bnei Yissaschar of Dynów. Ordained at thirteen by the Maharsham, he married Perel, daughter of Rabbi Shalom David Unger of Zhabne, and served as rabbi of Pruchnik and then, after his father's death, leaving the rabbinate of Ribititch to his brother, as rabbi and Rebbe of Istrik.

During the Holocaust he survived several Nazi camps, including Bergen-Belsen, where he sustained his fellow prisoners with his unshakeable faith; his wife was murdered. Accounts of his conduct during the Holocaust, notably his lighting of Chanukah candles in the camp, have been told in many books, including Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust.

After the war he went by way of Brussels to the United States, settling in Williamsburg and then Borough Park, where he opened his beit midrash and rebuilt his community. He was a member of the Council of Torah Sages and the elder of the Chassidic Rebbes.

He passed away on 1 Cheshvan 5750 (30 October 1989), at almost a hundred. Everyone felt the passing of one of the last witnesses of the pre-war generations. He rests on the Mount of Olives. His teachings were published as Shofra DeYisrael.