Ponevezh yeshiva
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Ponevezh yeshiva ('ישיבת פוניבז) (or Ponevitch) is one of the most famous Haredi Talmudical yeshivas with roots among the Lithuanian Jews. It is historically from the town of Panevėžys (in Yiddish Ponevezh), Lithuania. It was relocated to Bnei Brak in Israel by its Rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman. The yeshiva has over one thousand students.
The yeshiva also has a division for high school students known as Yeshivat Ponovezh Letzeirim (ישיבת פוניבז' לצעירים) headed by Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz and Rabbi Aharon Shteinman, who is regarded as one of the most important Haredi leaders of the non-Hasidic world together with Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv of Jerusalem.
Prior to the Holocaust the yeshiva was led by Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, who was known as the Ponovezher Rov functioned more as the President and chief fundraiser. He selected and appointed Rabbi Elazar Shach to be the academic head and full-time rosh yeshiva who in turn a significant leader of Haredi Judaism in the latter half of the twentieth century. Many other important scholars joined the faculty of Ponovezh, such as Rabbi Shmuel Rozovsky and Rabbi David Povarsky. The yeshiva is presently led by Rabbi Beryl Povarsky, Rabbi Gershon Edeleshtein, and Rabbi Chaim Shlomo Leibovitch. The latter's appointment was disputed by followers of Rabbi Shmuel Markovitz, and a shiur (public discourse) given by him was disturbed by a home-made explosive device on November 19th, 2006.
During the 1990s the yeshiva was subject to a public disagreement between two of its leaders, Rabbi Shmuel Markovitz (married to a granddaughter of the yeshiva's founder) and Rabbi Eliezer Kahaneman (a grandson of the founder) over the management of the yeshiva that resulted in heated and even violent confrontations between students of the Yeshiva.
