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Elchonon Wasserman

Elchonon Wasserman

1875 CE1941 CE · Acharonim · Biržai

Rabbi Elchonon Bunim Wasserman (1875–1941) was one of the most celebrated Rosh Yeshivas of pre-war Lithuanian Jewry and the closest disciple of the Chofetz Chaim. Born in Birzh and educated at the Telshe yeshiva and at Volozhin, he served as Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Ohel Torah in Baranovich from 1921 until the Nazi murder of its students and faculty in 1941.

His *Kovetz Shiurim* (collected Talmudic lectures) and *Kovetz He'arot* (notes on Yevamot and other tractates) became core Lithuanian-yeshiva texts, applying the Brisker analytical method to a wide range of Talmudic and halachic problems. His *Kovetz Maamarim* contains his hashkafah essays, including the famous 'Ikvasa de-Meshicha' (Footsteps of the Messiah) — a stark interwar reading of the spiritual disorientation of his era. He was murdered together with his students in Kovno in July 1941.

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Stop 1 of 111874Born

Biržai

What they did here

Son of the shopkeeper Naftali Beinish and Sheina Rakhel; his birthplace was Biržai (Birz), Lithuania, in 1874.

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Elchonon Wasserman’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Elchonon Wasserman’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(3)

Kovetz Shiurimקובץ שיעורים

Baranovich (Belarus) · 1936

Collected Talmudic lectures applying the Brisker analytical method to a wide range of Bavli tractates. Core Lithuanian-yeshiva text.

Full text not yet available in our corpus.

Kovetz Ma'amarimקובץ מאמרים

Baranovich (Belarus) · 1939

Collection of his hashkafah essays, most famously 'Ikvasa de-Meshicha' on the spiritual disorientation of the interwar era.

Full text not yet available in our corpus.

Influenced byChofetz ChaimElchonon Wasserman