Nearly two centuries of Torah learningMALKY LOWINGERThe year is 1815. In a small village in Lithuania, Rabbi Shmuel Chaim Tiktinski establishes a center of Torah learning and Jewish scholarship. It is called the Mirrer Yeshiva.Although humble in appearance, the Mirrer Yeshiva is a bastion of Torah learning for all of Eastern European Jewry and wins worldwide recognition as one of the foremost yeshivot on the globe. In the decades before World War II, young scholars flock to the yeshiva from Eastern and Western Europe, and from as far away as the United States. And so it goes for many years. A spiritual haven in a small town in Poland produces generations of holy men, many of whom serve as rabbis and spiritual leaders who guide and counsel their fellow Jews. With the arrival of the Holocaust, Europe's Jewish communities are engulfed in flames, cities and shtetls are consumed by the raging fires, yeshivot and synagogues are destroyed and families and communities are brutally murdered. Yet the fate of the Mirrer Yeshiva is somehow set apart. Once the leaders of the yeshiva recognize the danger, they attempt a heroic rescue. All 575 students escaped the flames, traveling more than 15,000 miles, crossing three continents, across Russia and Siberia, to Kobe, Japan, and eventually settling in Shanghai, China. In the Far East, the scholars gathered daily within the confines of a squalid ghetto to study Torah. While Hitler attempted to wipe out the Jewish people, the students of Mirrer kept Torah learning alive. The yeshiva was re-established on American soil in 1947. Its leaders were faced with the daunting challenge of building a new center of Torah in New York while incorporating the powerful atmosphere of Torah scholarship that prevailed in prewar Europe. The rabbinical leaders spared no effort in their devotion to their students, most of whom were poverty-stricken refugees and orphans. Rabbi Avraham Kalmanowitz, the visionary rosh yeshiva (head of yeshiva), led the battle. He pounded on the doors of bureaucrats, diplomats and heads of state, begging for their assistance. "Whenever there was a crisis or a problem for Jews, he was there," said Rabbi David Rebibo, spiritual leader of Beth Joseph Congregation in Phoenix and a former student at the yeshiva. "He looked at the globe as his territory." Rebibo first met Kalmanowitz in 1953, when the rosh yeshiva visited France to speak with Jewish leaders. "I was mesmerized with him," Rebibo said. "He had such an incredible stature. ... An imposing personality." He spent nearly two weeks working as a translator for Kalmanowitz, an experience that led to Rebibo moving to New York the following year to study at Mirrer Yeshiva. Today the Mirrer Yeshiva remains a vibrant force of Torah Jewry in America. Its student body numbers in the thousands. It encompasses the entire spectrum of Torah education, from preschool to grade school, from high school to post-high school, to Talmudic scholars. Malky Lowinger is a free-lance writer in Brooklyn, N.Y. Managing Editor Leisah Namm contributed to this article. |
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