Pinchas Menachem was born in Falenica, near Warsaw, Poland. He was the only offspring of the second marriage of his father, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter, the fourth Rebbe of Ger, to Feyge Mintshe Biderman. Pinchas Menachem had four half-brothers and two half-sisters from his father"s first marriage — including the fifth Rebbe of Ger, Rabbi Yisrael Alter, and Rabbi Simcha Bunim Alter, the sixth Rebbe of Germany
Pinchas Menachem"s bar mitzva took place near Ludmir in Poland (now western Ukraine) not long before the outbreak of World World War II in 1939. In the 1950s, he was appointed rosh yeshiva of Sfas Emes, the flagship yeshiva of Ger in Jerusalem, Israel. Rabbi Pinchas Menachem succeeded his half-brother, Rabbi Simcha Bunim Alter, to become Rebbe in 1992.
He reached a rapprochement with his non-Hasidic Ashkenazi Haredi fellow-rabbis, in particular with Rabbi Elazar Shach, leader of the rival Degel HaTorah party.
Together they created the United Torah Judaism (Yahadut HaTorah) party in order not to lose residual votes in the Israeli proportional representation system, and thereby potentially obtain an extra seat for the newly united party in Knesset elections. Rabbi Pinchas Menachem died in 1996 after less than four years at the helm of the Ger dynasty.
He was buried beside his father, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter, in the courtyard of the Sfas Emes Yeshiva. A brick ohel in the shape of a house was built over the two graves.
Both graves are visited frequently by students in the yeshiva.
Yitzchak Meir Alter (1798–1866)
Chanokh Heynekh HaKohen Levin (1799–1870)
Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter (1847–1905)
Avraham Mordechai Alter (1866–1948)
Yisrael Alter (1895–1977)
Simchah Bunim Alter (1898–1992)
Pinchas Menachem Alter (1926–1996)
Yaakov Aryeh Alter (b 1939).
