Ponevezh Yeshiva, often pronounced as Ponevitch Yeshiva (Hebrew: ישיבת פוניבז׳), is a yeshiva founded in 1908 in Panevėžys (Ponevezh), Lithuania, and located today in Bnei Brak, Israel since 1944. The yeshiva has over three thousand students, including those of affiliated institutions, and is considered one of the leading Litvish yeshivas in Israel.
Founded in 1908, the yeshiva was originally located in city of Panevėžys (Ponevezh), Lithuania before the Holocaust.[1] After the death of its founder, Yitzhak Yaakov Rabinovich, the yeshiva was re-established in Bnei Brak in 1944 by Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman,[2][3] who appointed Shmuel Rozovsky as dean, and some years later appointed Dovid Povarskyasrosh yeshiva.
The main study hall has an original 16th-century Italian wooden aron kodesh (Torah scroll ark), brought to the yeshiva in the early 1980s, and restored and re-gilded with 22 carat gild leaf.
During the 1990s, leadership of the yeshiva was the subject of a public disagreement between two of its leaders. Since then, the yeshiva has split and resulted in two yeshivas in the same building, with the students occupying different dormitories, though studying in the same learning hall and eating in the same dining room.
The Kahaneman faction of the yeshiva was led by rabbi Gershon Eidelstein and is led by rabbis Berel Povarsky (son of Dovid Povarsky), Reb Dovid Levy (son-in-law of Rabbi Eidelstein[4] and Reb Chaim Peretz Berman (a grandson of The Steipler, and a son-in-law of Reb Berel Povarsky). The Markovitz faction of the yeshiva is led by Reb Shmuel Markovitz, Reb Asher Deutch, and The Mashgiach Reb Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler.
Rabbis who have taught at the yeshiva include:
Alumni include the following rabbis:
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