Mir yeshiva

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Mir yeshiva (or Mirrer yeshiva) (Hebrew: ישיבת מיר), commonly known as "the Mir", is the name of two major Haredi yeshivas, one in Jerusalem, Israel, and the other, in Brooklyn, New York. The two institutions, which currently operate independently of each other, both have thousands of male Jewish students enrolled, studying Torah, Talmud and rabbinical literature.

1 The early days
2 Escape across Siberia by rail
3 Notable Mir alumni
4 Notable Mir faculty
5 References
6 External links

[edit] The early days

The original Mirrer yeshiva was founded in 1815, in Mir, Belarus, and remained in operation there until 1914. With the outbreak of World War I, the yeshiva moved to Poltava, Ukraine, under the leadership of Rabbi Eliezer Yehudah Finkel, son of the legendary Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel (the Alter of Slobodka), and son-in-law of Rabbi Elya Boruch Kamai, his renowned predecessor. 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.

Even from its earliest days, the Mir yeshiva was well known as a center of deep Talmud scholarship combined with the study of mussar ("Jewish ethics"). 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] Escape across Siberia by rail

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, and finally reopened in Kobe, Japan in 1941. Several smaller yeshivos managed to escape alongside the Mir, and, despite the difficulties involved, the overseers of the Mirrer yeshiva undertook full responsibility for their support, distributing funds and securing quarters and food for all the students. A short time later, the yeshiva relocated again, to (Japanese-controlled) Shanghai, China, where they remained until the end of World War II. 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.

Following the end of the war, the majority of the Jewish refugees from 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 in Jerusalem, Israel and the other as the Mirrer Yeshiva Central Institute in Brooklyn, New York City. From 1947 until 1978, the renowned Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz served as Rosh Yeshiva of the Jerusalem campus. Today, the Mirrer Yeshiva in Jerusalem is led by Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, a distant relative of Rabbi Eliezer Yehudah Finkel and Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel (the Alter of Slabodka), and is distinguished as the largest yeshiva in the world, with an enrollment of over 5,000 students. The Brooklyn yeshiva is currently led by Rabbi Shmuel Berenbaum.