Slabodka

Nosson Zvi (Nota Hirsh) Finkel (1849-1927), was born in Lithuania and died in the British Mandate of Palestine. He was an influential leader of Orthodox Judaism in Eastern Europe. He is better known by his Yiddish name as the Alter ("elder") and founder of the Slabodka Yeshiva, in the town of Slabodka (a suburb of Kaunas). Many of his pupils were to become major leaders of Orthodox Judaism in the USA and Israel. Nosson Zvi Finkel - Early years. Nota Hirsch was orphaned at an early age, and not ...

Including:

• Nosson Zvi Finkel - Early years
• Nosson Zvi Finkel - Philosophical approach
• Nosson Zvi Finkel - Opposition
• Nosson Zvi Finkel - Land of Israel
• Nosson Zvi Finkel - Influence

Read more here: » Nosson Zvi Finkel: Encyclopedia - Nosson Zvi Finkel

Rabbi Yehezkel Abramsky (1886–1976) was one of the world's most eminent Orthodox rabbis of the 20th century. He was born in Lithuania and studied at the yeshivas of Telz, Mir, Slabodka and Brisk, becoming a rabbi at the age of 17. He served the communities of Smolyan, Smolevich and Slutzk. Following the Russian Revolution, he was at the forefront of opposition to Communist attempts to repress the Jewish religion and culture. In 1928, he started a Hebrew magazine, Yagdil Torah ("Make Great [the] Torah"), but the ...

Read more here: » Yehezkel Abramsky: Encyclopedia - Yehezkel Abramsky

Despite his influence, he was an intensely private person. Yet, he personally oversaw the complete student body of the yeshiva. His motto was summed up in the words Gadlut Haadam ("Greatness of Man"). He stressed the need for mussar (ethics), using works such as those of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, polishing the character traits of his students so that they would aspire to become gedolim - "great o ...

See also:

Nosson Zvi Finkel, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Early years, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Philosophical approach, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Opposition, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Land of Israel, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Influence

Read more here: » Nosson Zvi Finkel: Encyclopedia II - Nosson Zvi Finkel - Philosophical approach

The founding of the yeshivot in Lithuania was due to the Lithuanian-Polish Jews who studied in the west, and to the German Jews who migrated about that time to Lithuania and Poland. Very little is known of these early yeshibot. No mention is made of them or of prominent Lithuanian rabbis in Jewish writings until the sixteenth century. The first known rabbinical authority and head of a yeshibah was Isaac Bezaleel of Vladimir, Volhynia, who was already an old man when Luria went to Ostrog in the fourth decade of the sixteenth century. Another ...

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Lithuanian Jews, Lithuanian Jews - Etymology of term, Lithuanian Jews - Ethnicity religious customs and heritage, Lithuanian Jews - Early history, Lithuanian Jews - Increasing prosperity and the great charter 1320-1432, Lithuanian Jews - The Charter of 1388, Lithuanian Jews - The union with Poland, Lithuanian Jews - Expulsion of the Jews in 1495 and return in 1503, Lithuanian Jews - The Act of 1566, Lithuanian Jews - Effect of the Cossacks' Uprising in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Jewish culture in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Items from the Responsa, Lithuanian Jews - Identified with Vilna Gaon, Lithuanian Jews - Lithuanian Jews today, Lithuanian Jews - Famous Jews with Lithuanian parentage

Read more here: » Lithuanian Jews: Encyclopedia II - Lithuanian Jews - Jewish culture in Lithuania

By the end of the nineteenth century, many of Lithuania's Jews were part of the general flight of Jews from Eastern Europe to the New World due to conflicts and pogroms engulfing the Russian Empire and the anti-Semitism of the Russian Czars. Millions of Jews, including tens of thousands of Lithuanian Jews emigrated to the United States of America. Many Lithuanian Jews emigrated to South Africa which became famous as a haven for its 120,000 Jews who were spared the Holocaust. A small number also emigrated to the British Mandate of Pale ...

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Lithuanian Jews, Lithuanian Jews - Etymology of term, Lithuanian Jews - Ethnicity religious customs and heritage, Lithuanian Jews - Early history, Lithuanian Jews - Increasing prosperity and the great charter 1320-1432, Lithuanian Jews - The Charter of 1388, Lithuanian Jews - The union with Poland, Lithuanian Jews - Expulsion of the Jews in 1495 and return in 1503, Lithuanian Jews - The Act of 1566, Lithuanian Jews - Effect of the Cossacks' Uprising in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Jewish culture in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Items from the Responsa, Lithuanian Jews - Identified with Vilna Gaon, Lithuanian Jews - Lithuanian Jews today, Lithuanian Jews - Famous Jews with Lithuanian parentage

Read more here: » Lithuanian Jews: Encyclopedia II - Lithuanian Jews - Lithuanian Jews today

The fury of this uprising destroyed the organization of the Lithuanian Jewish communities. The survivors who returned to their old homes in the latter half of the seventeenth century were practically destitute. The wars which raged constantly in the Lithuanian territory brought ruin to the entire country and deprived the Jews of the opportunity to earn more than a bare livelihood. The intensity of their struggle for existence left them no time to reestablish the conditions which had existed up to 1648. John Casimir (1648-68) sought to amelio ...

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Lithuanian Jews, Lithuanian Jews - Etymology of term, Lithuanian Jews - Ethnicity religious customs and heritage, Lithuanian Jews - Early history, Lithuanian Jews - Increasing prosperity and the great charter 1320-1432, Lithuanian Jews - The Charter of 1388, Lithuanian Jews - The union with Poland, Lithuanian Jews - Expulsion of the Jews in 1495 and return in 1503, Lithuanian Jews - The Act of 1566, Lithuanian Jews - Effect of the Cossacks' Uprising in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Jewish culture in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Items from the Responsa, Lithuanian Jews - Identified with Vilna Gaon, Lithuanian Jews - Lithuanian Jews today, Lithuanian Jews - Famous Jews with Lithuanian parentage

Read more here: » Lithuanian Jews: Encyclopedia II - Lithuanian Jews - Effect of the Cossacks' Uprising in Lithuania

Religious observances owe greatly to Elijah ben Solomon Kramer, the Vilna Gaon who lived in Lithuania's greatest city Vilna. His style of Torah and Talmud study shaped the analytical "Lithuanian-style" form of learning still practiced is most yeshivas. The yeshiva movement itself is a typical Lithuanian development, initiated by Kramer's main disciple, Rabbi Chaim Volozhin. Litvish and mitnagdish are used almost interchangeably. The Mitnagdim were the early opponents of Hasidic Judaism, led by the Vi ...

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Lithuanian Jews, Lithuanian Jews - Etymology of term, Lithuanian Jews - Ethnicity religious customs and heritage, Lithuanian Jews - Early history, Lithuanian Jews - Increasing prosperity and the great charter 1320-1432, Lithuanian Jews - The Charter of 1388, Lithuanian Jews - The union with Poland, Lithuanian Jews - Expulsion of the Jews in 1495 and return in 1503, Lithuanian Jews - The Act of 1566, Lithuanian Jews - Effect of the Cossacks' Uprising in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Jewish culture in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Items from the Responsa, Lithuanian Jews - Identified with Vilna Gaon, Lithuanian Jews - Lithuanian Jews today, Lithuanian Jews - Famous Jews with Lithuanian parentage

Read more here: » Lithuanian Jews: Encyclopedia II - Lithuanian Jews - Identified with Vilna Gaon

For the next 500 years, Poland and Lithuania were united. It was generally a time of prosperity and relative safety for the Jews of both countries (with the exception of the Chmielnicki Uprising in the 17th century). However, a few events, such as the expulsion of the Jews from Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1495 to 1503 occured just within Lithuania. This section will cover those events that occured only within Lithuania. Lithuanian Jews - ...

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Lithuanian Jews, Lithuanian Jews - Etymology of term, Lithuanian Jews - Ethnicity religious customs and heritage, Lithuanian Jews - Early history, Lithuanian Jews - Increasing prosperity and the great charter 1320-1432, Lithuanian Jews - The Charter of 1388, Lithuanian Jews - The union with Poland, Lithuanian Jews - Expulsion of the Jews in 1495 and return in 1503, Lithuanian Jews - The Act of 1566, Lithuanian Jews - Effect of the Cossacks' Uprising in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Jewish culture in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Items from the Responsa, Lithuanian Jews - Identified with Vilna Gaon, Lithuanian Jews - Lithuanian Jews today, Lithuanian Jews - Famous Jews with Lithuanian parentage

Read more here: » Lithuanian Jews: Encyclopedia II - Lithuanian Jews - The union with Poland

His main opponents in the "yeshiva world" were the members and alumni of the Brisk yeshiva of Lithuania headed by the Soloveitchik family, who, unlike their kin Joseph Soloveitchik who eventually moved to the United Sates, were adamantly opposed to any changes in what they believed to be the time-tested ways of yeshiva education. To this day, their yeshivot, based mainly in Jerusalem today, do not teach mussar ethics as some sort of spe ...

See also:

Nosson Zvi Finkel, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Early years, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Philosophical approach, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Opposition, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Land of Israel, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Influence

Read more here: » Nosson Zvi Finkel: Encyclopedia II - Nosson Zvi Finkel - Opposition

Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel staged one of the most dramatic moves in the history of yeshivot. In the 1920s he decided to create a branch of his yeshiva in the British Mandate of Palestine, together with the dean Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein, setting it up in Hebron and sending waves of hand-picked students there, culminating with his own permanent aliyah, "going up", to the Holy Land two years before his passing. In Palestine he founded his own institution in the town of Hebron called Knesses Yisroel - "Gathering of Israel", which moved to Jerusalem following the massacre of Jews during the 1929 Hebron mass ...

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Nosson Zvi Finkel, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Early years, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Philosophical approach, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Opposition, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Land of Israel, Nosson Zvi Finkel - Influence

Read more here: » Nosson Zvi Finkel: Encyclopedia II - Nosson Zvi Finkel - Land of Israel

Lithuanian Jews are almost all Ashkenazi Jews and many are Mitnagdim who were opposed to the new inroads of Hasidism. A sizable minority are Hasidim of Chabad and Karlin (Pinsk). Religiously, they were adherents of Haredi Judaism, but with the spread of the Enlightenment, many became devotees of the Haskala movement in Eastern Europe. In Israel, those whose roots are from Lithuania, or choose to be strongly associated with it, are called Litaim in Hebrew, or Litvish (in Yiddish, in English: "Lithuanians"). Some ...

See also:

Lithuanian Jews, Lithuanian Jews - Etymology of term, Lithuanian Jews - Ethnicity religious customs and heritage, Lithuanian Jews - Early history, Lithuanian Jews - Increasing prosperity and the great charter 1320-1432, Lithuanian Jews - The Charter of 1388, Lithuanian Jews - The union with Poland, Lithuanian Jews - Expulsion of the Jews in 1495 and return in 1503, Lithuanian Jews - The Act of 1566, Lithuanian Jews - Effect of the Cossacks' Uprising in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Jewish culture in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Items from the Responsa, Lithuanian Jews - Identified with Vilna Gaon, Lithuanian Jews - Lithuanian Jews today, Lithuanian Jews - Famous Jews with Lithuanian parentage

Read more here: » Lithuanian Jews: Encyclopedia II - Lithuanian Jews - Ethnicity religious customs and heritage

As early as the eighth century Jews lived in parts of the Lithuanian territory. Beginning with that period they conducted the trade between South Russia, i.e., Lithuania, and the Baltic, especially with Danzig, Julin (Vineta or Wollin, in Pomerania), and other cities on the Vistula, Oder, and Elbe. The origin of the Lithuanian Jews has been the subject of much speculation. It is now almost certain that they were made up of two distinct streams of Jewish immigration. The older of the two entered Lithuania by way of South Russia, where ...

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Lithuanian Jews, Lithuanian Jews - Etymology of term, Lithuanian Jews - Ethnicity religious customs and heritage, Lithuanian Jews - Early history, Lithuanian Jews - Increasing prosperity and the great charter 1320-1432, Lithuanian Jews - The Charter of 1388, Lithuanian Jews - The union with Poland, Lithuanian Jews - Expulsion of the Jews in 1495 and return in 1503, Lithuanian Jews - The Act of 1566, Lithuanian Jews - Effect of the Cossacks' Uprising in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Jewish culture in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Items from the Responsa, Lithuanian Jews - Identified with Vilna Gaon, Lithuanian Jews - Lithuanian Jews today, Lithuanian Jews - Famous Jews with Lithuanian parentage

Read more here: » Lithuanian Jews: Encyclopedia II - Lithuanian Jews - Early history

With the campaign of Gedimin and his subjection of Kiev and Volhynia (1320-21) the Jewish inhabitants of these territories were induced to spread throughout the northern provinces of the grand duchy. The probable importance of the southern Jews in the development of Lithuania is indicated by their numerical prominence in Volhynia in the thirteenth century. According to an annalist who describes the funeral of the grand duke Vladimir Vasilkovich in the city of Vladimir (Volhynia), "the Jews wept at his funeral as at the fall of Jerusalem, or ...

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Lithuanian Jews, Lithuanian Jews - Etymology of term, Lithuanian Jews - Ethnicity religious customs and heritage, Lithuanian Jews - Early history, Lithuanian Jews - Increasing prosperity and the great charter 1320-1432, Lithuanian Jews - The Charter of 1388, Lithuanian Jews - The union with Poland, Lithuanian Jews - Expulsion of the Jews in 1495 and return in 1503, Lithuanian Jews - The Act of 1566, Lithuanian Jews - Effect of the Cossacks' Uprising in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Jewish culture in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jews - Items from the Responsa, Lithuanian Jews - Identified with Vilna Gaon, Lithuanian Jews - Lithuanian Jews today, Lithuanian Jews - Famous Jews with Lithuanian parentage

Read more here: » Lithuanian Jews: Encyclopedia II - Lithuanian Jews - Increasing prosperity and the great charter 1320-1432