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Mir Yeshiva - ישיבת מיר
The Mir Yeshiva (Hebrew: ישיבת מיר, Yeshivas Mir), commonly known as the Mirrer Yeshiva or The Mir, was a Lithuanian yeshiva located in the town of Mir, Russian Empire (now Belarus). After relocating a number of times during World War II, it has evolved into three yeshivas, one in Jerusalem, with a subsidiary campus in Brachfeld, Modi'in Illit, and the other two in Brooklyn, New York: the Mir Yeshiva, and Bais Hatalmud.
Origins
The Mirrer Yeshiva was founded in 1815, 12 years after the founding of the Volozhin Yeshiva, by one of the prominent residents of a small town called Mir (then in White Russia, Russian Empire), Rabbi Shmuel Tiktinsky. After Rav Shmuel's death, his youngest son, Rabbi Chaim Leib Tiktinsky, was appointed rosh yeshiva. He was succeeded by his son, Rav Avrohom, who brought Rabbi Eliyahu Boruch Kamai into the yeshiva. During Rabbi Kamai's tenure the direction of the yeshiva wavered between those who wished to introduce the study of musar and those who were against it.
In 1903, Rabbi Kamai's daughter Malka married Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, son of the legendary Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the Alter of Slabodka, who joined the yeshiva faculty in late 1906. Under his influence, the yeshiva joined the musar movement definitively and Rabbi Zalman Dolinski of Radin was appointed as its first mashgiach.
World War I
With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the yeshiva moved from Mir to Poltava, Ukraine. Following the death of Rabbi Kamai in 1917, Rav Eliezer Yehuda was appointed as rosh yeshiva, ushering in the golden age of the yeshiva. In 1921, The yeshiva moved back to its original facilities in Mir, where it blossomed, attracting the cream of the yeshiva students. The yeshiva's reputation grew, attracting students not only from throughout Europe, but also from America, South Africa and Australia, and the student body grew to close to 500. By the time World War II broke out there was hardly a rosh yeshiva of the Lithuanian school who had not studied in Mir. During this period Rabbi Yeruchom Levovitz joined the yeshiva as mashgiach in succession to Rabbi Zalman Dolinski.
In 1929, one of the yeshiva's most gifted students, Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz ("Chaim Stutchiner"), married the daughter of Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel. Rabbi Chaim was appointed to the faculty in 1935.
Escape to the East
The invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany from the west and the Red Army from the east meant the yeshiva was unable to remain in Mir, which was now under Soviet Communist rule. Many of the foreign-born students left, but the bulk of the yeshiva relocated to Lithuania, which had been overrun by Soviet Russia, but not yet Sovietized. The yeshiva was first re-established in Wilno, and then in Keidan, Lithuania. Not many months elapsed before Lithuania became virtually annexed by Soviet Russia, and the future of the yeshiva was again in peril. The yeshiva was split into four sections: The "first division", under the leadership of Rabbi Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz as rosh yeshiva and Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein as mashgiach, relocated to Krakinova; the other three divisions went to the three small towns of Ramigola, Shat and Krak. It was obvious, however, that this arrangement was only a temporary solution, and that ultimately the yeshivah would need to flee Soviet-occupied Lithuania in order to survive. In the summer of 1940, several students of the yeshivah led by Nathan Gutwirth, dutch citizen, learned that the Dutch ambassador to Lithuania was willing to provide them with destination-visas to the Caribbean island of Curaçao. Concurrently, it became known that the Japanese consul in Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara, had agreed to issue transit visas to refugees who wished to escape via the Japanese-occupied Pacific. As a result of these fortuitous events (seen by many to this day as acts of divine providence) most of the yeshivah students requested and received several thousand transit-visas from Sugihara, permitting them to depart to the Far East.
Prominent alumni
- Rabbi Yehezkel Abramsky
- Rabbi Leib Bakst
- Rabbi Leib Baron (Baranovich)
- Rabbi Abba Berman
- Rabbi Samuel Belkin
- Rabbi Shmuel Berenbaum
- Rabbi Aryeh Bina
- Rabbi Moshe Yehuda Blau
- Rabbi Boruch Borchardt
- Rabbi Shimshon Brodsky (Brzozek)
- Rabbi Elya Chazan
- Rabbi Zelik Epstein
- Dayan Michoel Fisher
- Rabbi Henoch Fishman
- Rabbi Shmuel Feivushevitz
- Rabbi Avrohom Gardin
- Rabbi Moshe Gardyn
- Rabbi Shymon Gitelis
- Rabbi Ze'ev Wolf Gold
- Rabbi Zev "Velvel" Gordon
- Rabbi Shalom Menashe Gottleib
- Lazar Gulkowitsch
- Rabbi Leib Gurwicz
- Rabbi Uri Hellman
- Rabbi Moshe Kaplan
- Rabbi Nachum Kaplan
- Rabbi Yisrael Mendel Kaplan
- Rabbi Yonah Karpalov
- Rabbi Yisroel Eliezer Kenarek
- Rabbi Yitzchok Isaac Krasilschikov
- Rabbi Aharon Kreiser
- Rabbi Dovid Kronglass
- Rabbi Dovid Kviat
- Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Leizerson
- Rabbi Dovid Lifshitz
- Rabbi Aryeh Leib Malin
- Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer
- Rabbi Boruch Milikovsky
- Rabbi Meir Mintz
- Rabbi Herman N. Neuberger
- Rabbi Eliezer Palchinsky
- Rabbi Nochum Partzovitz
- Rabbi Yisroel Perkovsky
- Rabbi Lazer Perlow
- Rabbi Moshe Pivovoz
- Rabbi Chaim Portnoy
- Rabbi Eliezer Portnoy
- Rabbi Dovid Povarsky
- Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg
- Rabbi Kopul Rosen
- Rabbi Simcha Schepps
- Rabbi Moshe Schwab
- Rabbi Shimon Schwab
- Rabbi Moshe Zvi Segal
- Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapira
- Rabbi Naftoli Shapiro
- Rabbi Yeshaya Shimanowitz
- Rabbi Shimon Shkop
- Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz
- Rabbi Pesach Stein
- Rabbi Binyomin Zev Steinfeld
- Rabbi Nosson Meir Wachtfogel
- Rabbi Anshel Wainhaus
- Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg
- Rabbi Samuel Wilensky
- Rabbi Chaim Wisoker
- Rabbi Yitzchok Wolfson
- Rabbi Gershon Yankelewitz
- Rabbi Binyamin Zeilberger
- Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin
Roshei Yeshivah
- Rabbi Shmuel Tiktinsky (1815- )
- Rabbi Chaim Leib Tiktinsky
- Rabbi Eliyahu Boruch Kamai (? -1917)
- Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel (1917-1965); (Nosson Tzvi Finkel/The Alter of Slabodka's son and Eliyahu Boruch Kamai's son-in-law)
- Rabbi Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz (1941-1979)
- Rabbi Avraham Kalmanowitz
Mashgichim
- Rabbi Zalman Dolinski
- Rabbi Yeruchom Levovitz
- Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein