1891 CE–1962 CE · ACH · Vilna (Vilnius)
R. Aharon Kotler (1891–1962) was the architect of the post-war American yeshiva movement. Born in Sislovich (Belarus) and educated in Slabodka under the Alter, he served as Rosh Yeshiva of Kletsk before fleeing the Nazi advance through Vilna and Kobe to the United States in 1941.
In 1943 he founded Beth Medrash Govoha (BMG) in Lakewood, New Jersey, with fourteen students. Today it is the largest yeshiva in the world outside Israel and the institutional model for the entire modern American yeshiva movement, with over 7,000 students and a transformed Lakewood that grew up around it. R. Aharon was also a tireless founder of Chinuch Atzmai (Israel's independent religious school network) and a fierce advocate for Torah-only education in an era when most American Jewish life was assimilating.
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Born Aharon Pines near Minsk in the Russian Empire (now Belarus) on February 2, 1892. Orphaned at age 10 and adopted by his uncle, Rabbi Yitzchak Pines, a rabbinic judge in Minsk.
Lakewood, NJ · 1963
Three-volume collection of his Talmudic chiddushim and ethical addresses, published posthumously by his students. Considered a defining text of the Lithuanian analytic method (the 'Brisker' approach) carried into the American era.
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