He later served as rabbi and spiritual leader in a number of cities, including Libau in Latvia, Salant in Lithuania, and Kobryn in Belarus. In 1904, Rabbi Atlas was appointed rabbi to the community of Shavel.
Rabbi Meir Atlas was born in 1848 in Baisagola, Lithuania. In 1875, together with Rabbi Zvi Yaakov Oppenheim, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Abel and the help of a German Jewish layman, Ovadyah Lachman, Atlas founded the Telz Yeshiva in Telz, Lithuania.