Anglo-Jewry's oldest full-time minister when he retired in May aged 86, Rev Leslie Olsberg entered the ministry at 51, having vowed at 17 never to do so.
Endowed with a phenomenal memory for people and always available to them, he never took semichah. "My flock need me" was his answer to pressure from his sister Hilda Cohen, Manchester's first woman president of the Jewish Representative Council, to upgrade from reverend to rabbi.
The last surviving sibling of a large Orthodox family in Crumpsall - a brother, Sidney, became a leading regional mohel - he lost his ailing father when young. He first sold textiles but went into teaching, building up a religious educational infrastructure.
Educated at Marlborough Road Primary School, Leslie had his Hebrew education as an early pupil of the legendary Jonah Balkind. At Manchester Yeshivah he was a star student.
He was the founding (secular) head of Manchester and Salford Jewish Grammar School (now Mesivta High) in 1947 and later its hon secretary. He was chaplain to the King David Schools.
In 1951 he married Golda Landsberg of London, who gave him invaluable support. After teaching under Balkind, he ran Hebrew classes at South Broughton (Sabrina Street, now part of Holy Law), Higher Prestwich and, in 1970, for the Southport community. He taught over 3,000 barmitzvah boys.
He was 50 when he applied to Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, following the death of its Prague-born minister, Rabbi Gershon Wulwick, in 1972. He started the following year and was inducted into office by the late Chief Rabbi, Lord Jakobovits.
A natural communicator and concerned with young and old, Leslie Olsberg represented Manchester Orthodoxy to the world, as a president of the Council of Christians and Jews, conference speaker and even commentator in a 1996 TV programme on Pesach.
He was chaplain to Heathlands, the Manchester Home for Aged Jews, also visiting Jews in non-Jewish homes, and to North Manchester General Hospital. He conducted pre-Seders and third Seders at the Manchester Jewish Blind Society's Nicky Alliance day centre.
He was chaplain to Jewish scout groups and the Jewish Lads' and Girls' Brigade, with the rank of captain, conducting its centenary service in 1999.
He was chaplain to Manchester Ajex, taking memorial services and, in 1994, dedicating new standards. In the 1970s he conducted memorial services for the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising and a special VE Day 50th anniversary service in 1995. After the introduction of Holocaust Memorial Day in 2001, he was invited for the next two years to give the opening address in Blackburn.
His pan-communal work received unusual recognition when a road was named after him in the Salford Community Housing Association's new development. Olsberg Close was formally opened in 1994.
Charming and courteous, he was a stickler for Orthodoxy and tradition. He warned that he would not conduct weddings where the bride or women guests were underdressed - and carried out his threat. He insisted on full seven-day shivah observance. Though worried that a Maccabi sports centre could lead to breaking Shabbat, he fixed the mezuzah at its 2006 opening.
On retiring he became emeritus rabbi. He had survived a car crash in 1981 and was in failing health. But he recovered from a heart attack to collect his MBE, awarded in 2007, from Buckingham Palace. He died after a fall.
Predeceased by his wife in 2006, he is survived by three daughters, nine grandchildren and a great-grandson.