BNEI BRAK, Israel (VINnews) — Rabbi Dovid Michael Shmidel, a leading ultra-Orthodox activist who spent decades fighting against the excavation and disturbance of Jewish gravesites in Israel and abroad, died Monday at 92.

Shmidel served for years as chairman of the “Asra Kadisha” organization and was considered among the last prominent students of Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, widely known as the Chazon Ish, one of the most influential rabbinic leaders in Israel’s early decades.

Born in Vienna in 1934, Shmidel immigrated to what was then British-controlled Palestine with his family in 1939. He studied at the Slabodka Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and later under several leading rabbinic figures, including Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel and Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapiro.

Beginning in the 1950s, he became involved in religious campaigns opposing archaeological digs and autopsies that ultra-Orthodox leaders viewed as violations of Jewish law governing the treatment of the dead.

By the mid-1970s, Shmidel had assumed leadership of “Atra Kadisha,” turning the organization into one of the most visible ultra-Orthodox groups involved in disputes over construction projects and excavations near suspected burial sites.

In addition to his activism, he headed a kollel affiliated with “Metivta D’Rabbi Yochanan” in Tiberias and later in Komemiyut, contributed to Torah scholarship and served on the editorial staff of the Shabsi Frankel Institute Talmud project.

Israeli Cabinet minister Meir Porush described Shmidel as “a remnant of a generation of giants” who devoted his life to protecting the sanctity of Jewish burial grounds.

Funeral arrangements were expected to be announced later Monday.