Ponevezh Yeshiva
yeshiva founded in 1908
Ponevez Yeshiva (Lithuanian: Panevėžio ješiva), often pronounced as Ponevitch Yeshiva (Hebrew: ישיבת פוניבז׳), is a yeshiva founded in 1919 in Panevėžys (Ponevezh), Lithuania, and located in Bnei Brak, Israel since 1944. The yeshiva has over three thousand students, including those of affiliated institutions.
It is considered one of the leading Litvish (non-Hasidic ultra-orthodox) yeshivas in Israel.
History
Founded in 1919, the yeshiva was originally located in city of Panevėžys (Ponevez), Lithuania before the Holocaust. After the death of its founder, Yitzhak Yaakov Rabinovich, the yeshiva was re-established in Bnei Brak in 1944 by Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, who appointed Shmuel Rozovsky as dean, and some years later appointed Dovid Povarsky as rosh yeshiva.
The main study hall has an original 16th-century Italian wooden aron kodesh (Torah scroll ark), brought to the yeshiva in the early 1980s, and restored and re-gilded with 22 carat gild leaf.
Factions
During the 1990s, leadership of the yeshiva was the subject of a public disagreement between two of its leaders. Since then, the yeshiva has split and resulted in two yeshivas in the same building, with the students occupying different dormitories, though studying in the same learning hall and eating in the same dining room. The Kahaneman faction of the yeshiva was led by rabbi Gershon Edelstein and is led by rabbis Berel Povarsky (son of Dovid Povarsky), Reb Dovid Levy (son-in-law of Rabbi Edelstein and Reb Chaim Peretz Berman (a grandson of The Steipler, and a son-in-law of Reb Berel Povarsky). The Markovitz faction of the yeshiva is led by Reb Shmuel Markovitz and The Mashgiach Reb Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, who led together with Reb Asher Deutch until his death in 2024.
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