Rabbi Shmuel Berenbaum (March 1920[1] – January 6, 2008) was the rosh yeshiva of the Mir yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York City which includes an elementary school and a high school, as well as its post-graduate Talmudical Academy, and a Kollel.
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Rabbi Berenbaum was born in Knyszyn, Poland in March 1920, and studied at Ohel Torah Yeshiva in Baranovich, led by Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman. He later studied in the Mir Yeshiva located in the town of Mir, Poland.[2] At the onset of World War II, he traveled with the rest of the Mir Yeshiva to Wilno, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania) where they remained for three weeks, awaiting visas to travel abroad. After receiving destination visas to Curaçao, a Dutch protectorate in the Caribbean, they were given travel visas by the Japanese Consul in Kovno, Chiune Sugihara. The yeshiva traveled across the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok in a trip that took over two months. From there they traveled to Kobe, Japan, where they remained for 7 months before being settled by the Japanese Government in Shanghai, China.
Following the war, Berenbaum traveled with the remnants of the Mir Yeshiva to the United States where he settled in Brooklyn, New York. Berenbaum married the eldest daughter of the Mir rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Avrohom Kalmanovitz.[3][4]
In 1952, after the passing of his father-in-law, he became the rosh yeshiva of the Mirrer Yeshiva together with his brother-in-law Rabbi Shraga Moshe Kalmanovitz. He led the yeshiva for the next 56 years. His diligence in Torah study was legendary and he was known to spend the entire day in the yeshiva's study hall speaking with the students in learning.
As a policy, he would not attend any functions or weddings until after the afternoon seder in the yeshiva was over. This caused many weddings to take place late in the evening so as to allow him to officiate. He opposed his yeshiva students going to college, and later banned it outright.
After Berernbaum's first heart attack, the name Refoel was added to his name.[5]
Berenbaum died on January 6, 2008[6], at his home in Brooklyn, NY from medical complications due to stomach cancer, aged 87. His funeral, held on January 7 at the Mir Yeshiva[7], was attended by tens of thousands of mourners. [8] His body was flown to Israel for burial in the Sanhedriya cemetery in Jerusalem.
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