- Mir yeshiva (Poland)
:"This article concerns the pre-war Mirrer yeshiva in Poland. For the post-war yeshivas, see
Mir yeshiva (Jerusalem) andMir yeshiva (Brooklyn) "The Mir yeshiva ( _he. ישיבת מיר, "Yeshivas Mir"), commonly known as the Mirrer Yeshiva or The Mir, was a Harediyeshiva located in the Eastern European town of Mir,Poland , currently inBelarus . After relocating a number of times duringWorld War II , it today comprises two campuses, one inJerusalem and the other inBrooklyn .Origins
The Mirrer Yeshiva was founded in 1815, twelve years after the founding of the
Volozhin Yeshiva , by one of the prominent residents of a small Polish town ofMir, Belarus (then Russia), RabbiShmuel Tiktinsky . After Rav Shmuel's death, his youngest son, RabbiChaim Leib Tiktinsky , was appointedrosh yeshiva . He was succeeded by his son, Rav Avrohom, who brought RabbiEliyahu 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", the 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 toPoltava ,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 throughoutEurope , but also from America,South Africa andAustralia , and the student body grew to close to 500. By the timeWorld War II broke out there was hardly a rosh yeshiva of the Lithuanian school who had not studied in Mir. During this period RabbiYeruchom Lebovitz joined the yeshiva as mashgiach in succession to Rabbi Zalman Dolinski.In 1929, one of the yeshiva's prime students,
Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz , married the daughter of Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel. Rabbi Chaim 'Stutchiner' was appointed to the faculty in 1935.Escape to the East
The invasion of Poland in 1939 by
Nazi Germany from the west and theRed Army from the east meant the yeshiva was unable to remain in Mir, which was now underCommunist rule. Many of the foreign-born students left, but the bulk of the yeshiva relocated, first to Vilna, then temporarily in independentLithuania , and then to Keidan, Lithuania. Not many months elapsed before Lithuania lost its independence to invading Soviet forces, 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 RabbiYechezkel Levenstein as mashgiach, relocated toKrakinova ; the other three divisions went to the three small towns of Ramigola, Shat and Krak.Kobe
As the Nazi armies continued to push to the east, the yeshiva as a whole eventually fled across
Siberia bytrain to theFar East , en route to theUSA . The yeshiva reopened inKobe ,Japan in March 1941.While the Yeshiva was in Kobe, a controversy arose as to when to observe the Sabbath. The opinions of the Chazon Ish and Rav Yechiel Michel Tokachinsky were solicited. Ultimately, the students refrained from biblical Sabbath violations on two days, but kept it completely on only one of the days.
Several smaller yeshivas managed to escape alongside the Mirrer Yeshiva and, despite the difficulties involved, the leaders of the yeshiva undertook full responsibility for their support, distributing funds (mostly received from the
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee ) and securing quarters and food for all the students. The heroism of the Japanese consul-general in Lithuania,Chiune Sugihara , who issued several thousand travel visas to Jews, permitting them to flee to the east, has been the subject of several books.hanghai
A short time later Japan expelled the Jews from its mainland, and the yeshiva relocated again, to (Japanese-controlled)
Shanghai ,China , where they remained until 1947. In Shanghai, Rabbi Meir Ashkenazi, aLubavitcher chasid who served as the spiritual leader of the Jewish refugees, arranged for the yeshiva to occupy the Beit Aharon Synagogue, built in 1920 by a prominent Jewish Shanghai businessman,Silas Aaron Hardoon . For the first few weeks, until funds could be sourced for provisions, the yeshiva community suffered from malnutrition.Re-establishment after the war
Following the end of the war, the majority of the
Jewish refugees from theShanghai ghetto left forPalestine and theUnited States . Among them were the survivors from the Mir yeshiva, who re-established the yeshiva, this time with two campuses, one as the Mirrer Yeshiva inJerusalem ,Israel and the other as the Mirrer Yeshiva Central Institute inBrooklyn ,New York City . The yeshiva's leaders, Rabbi Shmuelevitz and Rabbi Levenstein, left Shanghai for New York in early 1947 with the last contingent of students. Three months later they set sail for Palestine, where the Mirrer Yeshiva had been re-established under the leadership of Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, who emigrated there before World War II.Prominent alumni
*RabbiYechezkel Abramsky
*RabbiSamuel Belkin
*RabbiZelik Epstein
*DayanMichoel Fisher
*Rabbi Ze'ev Wolf Gold
*RabbiZev "Velvel" Gordon
*Lazar Gulkowitsch
*RabbiLeib Gurwicz
*RabbiAvraham Jacobovitz
*RabbiMoshe Kaplan
*RabbiYisrael Mendel Kaplan
*RabbiYitzchok Isaac Krasilschikov
*RabbiDovid Kronglass
*RabbiDovid Kviat
*RabbiAryeh Leib Malin
*RabbiIsser Zalman Meltzer
*RabbiBoruch Milikovsky
*RabbiHerman N. Neuberger
*RabbiChaim Pinchas Scheinberg
*RabbiMoshe Schwab
*RabbiShimon Schwab
*RabbiMoshe Shmuel Shapira
*RabbiNaftoli Shapiro
*RabbiShimon Shkop
*RabbiChaim Shmuelevitz
*RabbiPesach Stein
*RabbiNosson Wachtfogel Prominent faculty
Rosh yeshivas
* Rabbi
Shmuel Tiktinsky (1815-
* RabbiChaim Leib Tiktinsky
* RabbiEliyahu Boruch Kamai ( -1917)
* RabbiEliezer Yehuda Finkel (1917-1965)
* RabbiChaim Leib Shmuelevitz (1940-1947)Mashgichim
* Rabbi Zalman Dolinski
* Rabbi Yeruchom Lebovitz
* RabbiYechezkel Levenstein References
* Zinowitz, M. Hebrew: תולדות ישיבת מיר ("Toldot Yeshivat Mir", Hebrew: The History of Mir Yeshiva). Tel Aviv, 1981.
* |journal=קול התורה "Kol Hatorah" |volume=53 |issue= |pages=93–99
*cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007090 |title=Mir Yeshiva |accessdate=2007-08-17 |last= |first= |authorlink= |coauthors= |date=2007-06-25 |year= |month= |format= |work=Holocaust Encyclopedia |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |pages= |language= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |quote=External links
* [http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rkimble/Mirweb/MirHistory.html Reeva Kimble's "Brief History of the Jews of Mir"]
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