27 Facts About Elchonon Wasserman

Elchonon Bunim Wasserman was a prominent rabbi and rosh yeshiva in prewar Europe.

Elchonon Wasserman was one of the closest students of Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan and a noted Talmid Chacham.

Elchonon Bunim Wasserman was born in Birzai in present-day Lithuania to Naftali Beinish, a shopkeeper and Sheina Rakhel.

When Elchonon Wasserman returned home during vacation, he participated in classes given by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook, who was appointed rabbi of Bauska in 1895.

Elchonon Wasserman was married in 1899 to Michla, the daughter of R' Meir Atlas, rabbi of Salantai.

R' Elchonon Wasserman lived in his father-in-law's house for many years and rejected offers of rabbinical posts being afforded the opportunity to learn Torah at home.

Elchonon Wasserman did however decide to teach, and together with R' Yoel Baranchik, he started a mesivta in Mstislavl in 1903 and earned himself a reputation as an outstanding teacher.

In 1910, with the encouragement of Rabbi Yisroel Meir Kagan, the Chofetz Chaim, Wasserman was appointed rosh yeshiva of the mesivta in Brest-Litovsk, leading its expansion until it was disbanded in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I With its closing, Rav Wasserman returned to Rav Kagan in Radin.

In 1914, the yeshiva was exiled to Smilavichy, near Minsk, and Rav Elchonon Wasserman was appointed its rosh yeshiva one year later when Rav Kagan decided to relocate to Siemiatycze.

Together with Rav Yitzchok Hirshowitz, Rav Elchonon Wasserman was asked to keep Torah alive in Smilavichy.

R' Elchonon Wasserman moved to Baranovichi, Second Polish Republic, where he took the lead of Yeshiva Ohel Torah-Baranovich.

Elchonon Wasserman was one of the leaders of the Agudath Israel movement and was regarded as the spiritual successor of the Chofetz Chaim.

Towards the end of 1937, Rav Elchonon Wasserman traveled to the United States for 17 months in order to raise money for the yeshiva.

Elchonon Wasserman visited dozens of cities and towns, and raised around $10,000.

Reb Elchonon Wasserman returned to Poland, although he knew his life was in danger by doing so.

Elchonon Wasserman suggested instead that the student consider Yeshiva Torah Vodaas in Brooklyn, New York.

When World War II broke out, Reb Elchonon Wasserman fled to Vilnius.

Rav Elchonon Wasserman was taken and murdered by Lithuanian collaborators on the 11th of Tammuz, 1941, in the Seventh Fort of Kaunas Fortress.

Elchonon Wasserman based his opinion upon the Torah views of his teachers, including Rabbis Kagan, Gordon, Shkop and Soloveitchik.

Elchonon Wasserman considered all forms of Zionism to be heretical, even that of the religious Mizrachi party.

Elchonon Wasserman was opposed to the idea of a Jewish state because it constituted kefirah of the coming of Moshiach.

Elchonon Wasserman held this position even in reference to a state run according to Torah law.

Elchonon Wasserman declared that any religious Jew who collaborated with the Zionists was causing others to sin.

Elchonon Wasserman rejected the notion that the creation of a state was a signal to the Atchalta De'Geulah, considering it instead to be the beginning of a new galus.

Reb Elchonon Wasserman viewed the two ascendant political movements of his time, nationalism and socialism, as "two forms of idolatry that had poisoned the hearts and minds of Jewish youth", and saw Nazism as an amalgam of both.

Elchonon Wasserman viewed the rise of the Nazi Party as a tool of God to exact punishment on the Jewish people for their pursuit of these foreign belief systems.

Elchonon Wasserman published the responsa of the Rashba with annotations in 1932.