Mir Yeshiva (Belarus)

For the post-war Mir Yeshiva, see Mir (Jerusalem) or Mir (Brooklyn).

Yeshivas Mir (Hebrew: ישיבת מיר), commonly known as the "Mirrer Yeshiva" or "The Mir", is the name of a major Haredi yeshiva which was located in the Eastern European shtetl of Mir, Belarus, until World War II.

History

The Mirrer Yeshiva was founded in in 1815, twelve years after the founding of the Volozhin Yeshiva, by one of the prominent residents of the quiet and small Polish town of Mir, Belarus (then Russia), 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. 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 Alter of Slabodka, the legendary Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel), 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.

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, Rabbi 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 teh 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.

In 1929 one of the yeshiva's prime students, Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz of Stutchin, married the daughter of Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda. Rabbi Chaim 'Stutchiner' was appointed to the faculty in 1935.

With invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany from the west (see Invasion of Poland), marking the beginning of the Holocaust, and the consequential invasion by the Soviet army from the east, the yeshiva was unable to remain in Mir 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: 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 Ramigola, Shat and Krak.

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 the two countries were now at war with each other. and finally reopened in Kobe, Japan in March 1941. 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.

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 chosid who served as the spiritual leader of the Jewish refugees, arranged for the yeshiva to occupy the Bet 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.

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.

Notable Mir alumni

• Rabbi Yechezkel Abramsky
• Rabbi Samuel Belkin
• Rabbi Zvi Block
• Lazar Gulkowitsch
• Rabbi Leib Gurwicz
• Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan

• Rabbi Yisrael Mendel Kaplan
• Rabbi Dovid Kronglass
• Rabbi Yaakov Luban
• Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer
• Rabbi Herman N. Neuberger
• Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg
• Rabbi Moshe Schwab
• Rabbi Shimon Schwab

• Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapira
• Rabbi Shimon Shkop
• Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz
• Rabbi Aryeh Leib Malin
• Rabbi Pesach Stein
• Rabbi Zev "Velvel" Gordon
• Rabbi Moshe Kaplan
• Rabbi Avraham Jacobovitz - director, Machon l'Torah

Notable Mir faculty

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)

Mashgichim

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

References

• Zinowitz, M. Hebrew: תולדות ישיבת מיר (Toldot Yeshivat Mir, Hebrew: The History of Mir Yeshiva). Tel Aviv, 1981.
• Sorasky, Aharon (2002). "Hebrew: פה המתגבר בתורה". קול התורה ‎Kol Hatorah. 53: 93–99. {{cite journal}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |quotes= ignored (help)

External links

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