Mir yeshiva (Poland)

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Old photo of Mir yeshiva, Belarus

This article concerns the pre-war Mirrer yeshiva in Poland. For the post-war yeshivas, see Mir yeshiva (Jerusalem) and Mir yeshiva (Brooklyn)

The Mir yeshiva (Hebrew: ישיבת מיר‎, Yeshivas Mir), commonly known as the Mirrer Yeshiva or The Mir, was a Haredi yeshiva located in the Eastern European town of Mir, Poland, currently in Belarus. After relocating a number of times during World War II, it today comprises two campuses, one in Jerusalem and the other in Brooklyn.

[edit] 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 of Mir, Belarus (then Russia), 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, 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.

[edit] 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 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.

[edit] 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 Communist rule. Many of the foreign-born students left, but the bulk of the yeshiva relocated, first to Vilna, then temporarily in independent Lithuania, 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 Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein as mashgiach, relocated to Krakinova; the other three divisions went to the three small towns of Ramigola, Shat and Krak.

[edit] Kobe

As the Nazi armies continued to push to the east, the yeshiva as a whole eventually fled across Siberia by train to the Far East, en route to the USA. However, by the time they reached Japan travel to the USA was no longer feasible, as the two countries were by then at war with each other. The yeshiva reopened in Kobe, 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.

[edit] Shanghai

Students and teachers of the exiled Mir yeshiva study in the sanctuary of the Beit Aharon Synagogue, Shanghai.

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, a Lubavitcher 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 an Iraqi Jewish emigré. For the first few weeks, until funds could be sourced for provisions, the yeshiva community suffered from malnutrition.

[edit] Re-establishment after the war

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, who re-established the yeshiva, this time with two campuses, one as the Mirrer Yeshiva in Jerusalem, Israel and the other as the Mirrer Yeshiva Central Institute in Brooklyn, 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.

[edit] Prominent alumni

[edit] Prominent faculty

[edit] Rosh yeshivas

• Rabbi Shmuel Tiktinsky (1815-
• Rabbi Chaim Leib Tiktinsky
• Rabbi Eliyahu Boruch Kamai ( -1917)
• Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel (1917-1965)
• Rabbi Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz (1940-1947)

[edit] Mashgichim

• Rabbi Zalman Dolinski
• Rabbi Yeruchom Lebovitz
• Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein

[edit] References

• Zinowitz, M. Hebrew: תולדות ישיבת מיר (Toldot Yeshivat Mir, Hebrew: The History of Mir Yeshiva). Tel Aviv, 1981.
• Sorasky, Aharon (September 2002). Hebrew: פה המתגבר בתורה‎. קול התורה ‎Kol Hatorah' 53: 93–99. 
• Mir Yeshiva. Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2007-06-25). Retrieved on 2007-08-17.

[edit] External links

• Reeva Kimble's "Brief History of the Jews of Mir"

v • d • e Mir Yeshiva Locations Mir, Poland • Jerusalem, Israel • New York, United States • Brachfeld, Israel Faculty Shmuel Berenbaum • Binyomin Beinush Finkel • Nosson Tzvi Finkel • Yeruchom Levovitz • Yechezkel Levenstein • Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz