Chaim Shmuelevitz

Rabbi Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz (1902–1979) was born in Kovno, Lithuania, into a rabbinic family; his maternal grandfather was Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horowitz, the Alter of Novardok. Taught first by his father, he later studied in Grodno under Rabbi Shimon Shkop before moving, around the age of twenty-two, to the yeshiva of Mir, with which his life would remain bound for decades. Appointed a lecturer there, he helped lead the yeshiva through its wartime flight across Asia, reaching Shanghai, where he served as its head from 1941 to 1947. After the war he settled in Jerusalem, where the Mir yeshiva was re-established, and became its rosh yeshiva in 1965, a role he held until his death. His ethical discourses were later gathered and published as Sichot Mussar.