Mir yeshiva (Jerusalem)

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Not to be confused with Mir yeshiva (Poland).

Not to be confused with Mir yeshiva (Brooklyn).

The Mir yeshiva or Mirrer Yeshiva or Yeshivas Mir (or Hebrew: ישיבת מיר‎), commonly known as "The Mir", is the name of a Haredi yeshiva, in Jerusalem, Israel. It is presently distinguished as the largest yeshiva in the world, its student body numbers around 5,000 post-high school students, most from the United States. Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel is the present rosh yeshiva ("head [of the] yeshiva") of the Mir yeshiva in Jerusalem.

1 History
- 1.1 The Mirrer yeshiva is set up in Jerusalem
2 Notable Mir alumni
3 Notable Mir faculty
4 See also
5 Reference
6 External link

[edit] History

See also Mir Yeshiva (Poland).

The original Mirrer yeshiva was founded in 1815 by one of the prominent residents of the quiet and small Polish town of Mir, Belarus Rabbi Shmuel Tiktinsky. After Rabbi 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.

In 1903, Rabbi Kamai's daughter married Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, son of the legendary Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel who in time became the rosh yeshiva of the Mir. The yeshiva remained in that location until 1914.

With the outbreak of World War I, the yeshiva moved to Poltava, Ukraine. In 1921, the yeshiva moved back to its original facilities in Mir, where it remained until Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939 (see Invasion of Poland) marking the beginning of the Holocaust.

Although many of the foreign-born students left when the Soviet army invaded from the east, the yeshiva continued to operate, albeit on a reduced scale, until the approaching Nazi armies caused the leaders of the yeshiva to move the entire yeshiva community to Keidan, Lithuania.

[edit] The Mirrer yeshiva is set up in Jerusalem

At about this time, the rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Leizer Yudl Finkel. traveled to Palestine, with the intention of obtaining visas for the members of the yeshiva and resettling the yeshiva in the Land of Israel. However, the war prevented the yeshiva from following, and Rabbi Leizer Yudl was to be separated from the main yeshiva for the next seven years. In 1944 Reb Leizer Yudel started a branch of the yeshiva in Jerusalem with ten talmidim, among them Rabbi Yudel Shapiro (later to become Rosh Kollel Chazon Ish), Rabbi Chaim Brim (later rosh yeshiva of Rizhn-Boyan, and Rabbi Chaim Greineman^[1].

As the Nazi armies continued to push to the east, the yeshiva as a whole eventually fled to (Japanese-controlled) Shanghai, China, where they remained until the end of World War II. Following the end of the war, the majority of the Jewish refugees from the Shanghai ghetto left for Palestine and the United States. Among them were the survivors from the Mir Yeshiva, many of whom rejoined the yeshiva in Jerusalem under Rabbi Leizer Yudl in 1947. From 1947 until 1978, Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz served as a Rosh Yeshiva of the Jerusalem campus.

After Rabbi Leizer Yudl died on the 19th of Tammuz 5725, his son, Rabbi Beinish Finkel, joined Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz (his brother-in-law) as Mirrer rosh yeshiva. Rabbi Beinish Finkel became rosh yeshiva after his father Rabbi Eliezer Yehudah passed on. With Rabbi Beinish's passing in 1990 the reins were taken over by Rabbi Beinish's sons-in-law, with the current rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, at the helm.