Yechezkel Levenstein

Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein (1885-1974), often called Reb Chatzkel, was a mashgiach ruchani, the rabbi charged with students' spiritual and ethical formation, in the Lithuanian yeshiva world. Born in Warsaw, he studied at the yeshiva of Lomza, at Radin under the Chofetz Chaim and Rabbi Yeruchom Levovitz, and at the Talmud Torah of Kelm, whose musar discipline shaped his life's work. He served as mashgiach at Kletzk and then at the Mir yeshiva, guiding it through its wartime exile from Poland across the Soviet Union to Shanghai, where the community continued its studies during the Second World War. Settling in the Land of Israel in 1949, he became mashgiach at the Mir yeshiva in Jerusalem and later at Ponevezh in Bnei Brak. His ethical talks were gathered in the collections Ohr Yechezkel and MiMizrach Shemesh.