Kelm Talmud Torah

Yeshiva in pre-holocaust Kelmė, Lithuania destroyed by Nazis

The Kelm Talmud Torah was a famous yeshiva in pre-holocaust Kelmė, Lithuania. Unlike other yeshivas, the Talmud Torah focused primarily on the study of Musar ("Jewish ethics") and self-improvement.

## Under the Leadership of Simcha Zissel Ziv

[edit]

The Talmud Torah was founded in the 1860s by Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, known as the Alter of Kelm (the Elder of Kelm), to strengthen the study of Musar in Lithuania.

In 1872, Rabbi Ziv purchased a plot of land and erected a building for the Talmud Torah, which began as a primary school and soon became a secondary school.

In 1876, the Talmud Torah was denounced to the authorities, who began to watch it closely and to hound it. Many traditional Jews in Kelm saw Rabbi Ziv as a "reformer," as his school supported unconventional prayer practices and an unconventional, musar-focused curriculum.[1]

The curriculum of the original Talmud Torah under Rabbi Ziv's leadership was unusual for a nineteenth-century Lithuanian yeshiva in two respects:

1. Significant time was devoted to Musar, work on the improvement of character traits. In most Lithuanian yeshivas, nearly the entire day was spent studying Talmud. By contrast, at the Talmud Torah, according to Menahem Glenn, "Musar was the chief study, while the study of Talmud was only of minor importance and little time was devoted to it."[1]
2. In addition to Jewish subjects, students studied general subjects such as geography, mathematics, and Russian language and literature for three hours a day. The Kelm Talmud Torah was the first traditional yeshiva in the Russian empire to give such a focus to general studies.[2]

Under pressure from the Jews of Kelm, Rabbi Ziv decided to open his school elsewhere: he re-established it in Grobin, in the Courland province.

In 1881, Rabbi Ziv returned to Kelm, where the Talmud Torah became an advanced academy for the study of Torah and Musar. Most of the students who came to study at the Talmud Torah were married. Entry to the Talmud Torah was difficult and restricted to select students from other yeshivas, who had to bring letters of recommendation from their Rosh Yeshiva. Students were chosen after they passed rigorous examinations on Musar. At its peak, the Talmud Torah had a student body of between 30 and 35 members.[citation needed]

Rabbi Ziv established a group that was known as "Devek Tov," comprising his foremost students. He shared a special relationship with the group's members and he worked on writing out his discourses for them.

## The Talmud Torah after Ziv's death

[edit]

Simcha Zissel Ziv died in 1898. Upon his death, his brother Rabbi Aryeh Leib Broida became the new director of the Talmud Torah. Aryeh Leib moved to the land of Israel in 1903, and his son Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Broida (also Simcha Zissel Ziv's son-in-law) became the new director of the Talmud Torah.

After Tzvi Hirsch Broida's death in 1913, Simcha Zissel's son Rabbi Nahum Ze'ev Ziv became the new director of the Talmud Torah.

After Nahum Ze'ev Ziv's death in 1916, Simcha Zissel's student Rabbi Reuven Dov Dessler became the new director. He was succeeded by Simcha Zissel's sons-in-law, Rabbi Daniel Movshovitz and Rabbi Gershon Miadnik.

On June 23, 1941, Nazi forces entered Kelm. Shortly after, the faculty and students of the Talmud Torah were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators and are buried in a mass grave in the fields of the Grozhebiski farm.

## Notable students

[edit]

The Mashgichim in many of the yeshivas in Poland and Lithuania were students of the Talmud Torah of Kelm. Some were:

* Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel of Slabodka
* Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler of Ponevezh Yeshiva
* Rabbi Yosef Yoizel Hurwitz of Novardok Yeshiva
* Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein in Mir and then later in Ponevezh Yeshiva
* Rabbi Yeruchom Levovitz of Mir
* Rabbi Zalman Dolinsky of Slabodka and Mir Yeshiva (Belarus)
* Rabbi Yosef Leib Nenedik in Kletzk
* Rabbi Moshe Rosenstein in Łomża
* Rabbi Naftoli Trop of Radun
* Rabbi Nosson Meir Wachtfogel, mashgiach ruchani of Beth Medrash Govoha, Lakewood, New Jersey
* Rabbi Elyah Lopian of the Knesses Chizkiyahu Yeshiva in Kfar Hasidim, Israel.
* Rabbi Hayyim Yitzhak HaCohen Bloch, Honorary President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada.

Other notable students:

* Shmuel Schecter, co-founder, Beth Medrash Govoha

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b Menahem Glenn, Israel Salanter: Religious-Ethical Thinker (New York: Dropsie College, 1953), 71-2.
2. ^ Zalman Ury, The Musar Movement: A Quest for Excellence in Character Education (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1970), 51.

## Further reading

[edit]

Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, "The Martyrdom of the Kelm Yeshiva" in Michtav Me'Eliyahu, volume 3, pages 346-8

## External links

[edit]

* Kelme: An Uprooted Tree

* v
* t
* e

Musar movement

People|

| Prewar leaders|

* Yisroel Salanter
* Simcha Zissel Ziv
* Yitzchak Blazer
* Nosson Tzvi Finkel
* Naftali Amsterdam
* Yosef Yozel Horwitz
* Yeruchom Levovitz
* Reuven Dov Dessler
* Eliezer Gordon
* Moshe Rosenstain
* Naftoli Trop

|

Postwar leaders|

* Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler
* Gershon Liebman
* Yechezkel Levenstein
* Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz
* Nosson Meir Wachtfogel
* Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg
* Shlomo Wolbe

Contemporary thinkers|

* Yechiel Perr
* Ira F. Stone
* Geoffrey Claussen
* Alan Morinis
* David Jaffe
* Hillel Goldberg

Yeshivot|

* Kovno Kollel
* Lomza Yeshiva
* Novardok Yeshiva
* Yeshivas Knesses Yisrael (Slabodka)
* Mir Yeshiva (Belarus)
* Kelm Talmud Torah
* Hebron Yeshiva
* Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim

Books|

* Musar literature

Practices|

* Jewish meditation
* Jewish ethics
* Tzedakah
* Teshuvah
* Niggun

Terms|

* Mashgiach ruchani

Category

* v
* t
* e

Jews and Judaism in Lithuania

Topics|

* The Holocaust
* Vilna Ghetto
* Kaunas Ghetto
* Paneriai massacre
* Jewish partisans
* History
* Timeline
* Khmelnytsky Uprising
* Vilna Gaon

Groups|

| Denominations|

* Karaite
* Orthodoxy
* Ashkenazi
* Hasidism
* Breslov
* Chabad-Lubavitch
* Chernobyl
* Komarno
* Koson
* Ruzhin
* Seret
* Veretzky
* Vizhnitz

|

Synagogues|

| Current|

* Kaunas Synagogue
* Choral Synagogue (Vilnius)
* Vilnius Kenesa

|

Former|

| Still standing|

* Alanta
* Čekiškė
* Beit Medrash Hagadol (Jonava)
* Merchants (Jonava)
* Red (Joniškis)
* White (Joniškis)
* Trakai Kenesa
* Zamelis (Vilnius)

|

Destroyed / demolished|

* Red Synagogue of Jonava
* Great Synagogue of Vilna

Yeshivas|

* Kelm Talmud Torah
* Knesses Beis Yitzchak
* Knesses Yisrael (Slabodka)
* Ponevezh
* Rameiles
* Telshe
* Tomchei Tmimim

* List of Lithuanian Jews
* Wooden synagogues in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
* List

* v
* t
* e

Pre–World War II European Yeshivos

Lithuania|

| Yeshivos|

* Kelm Talmud Torah
* Ponevezh Yeshiva
* Ramailes Yeshiva
* Slabodka Yeshiva
* Telshe Yeshiva

|

Notable roshei yeshiva|

* Avraham Yitzchak Bloch
* Yosef Leib Bloch
* Moshe Mordechai Epstein
* Nosson Tzvi Finkel
* Eliezer Gordon
* Shlomo Heiman
* Tzvi Hersh Levitan
* Israel Salanter
* Yitzchak Isaac Sher

Notable mashgichim|

* Leib Chasman
* Meir Chadash
* Dov Tzvi Heller
* Ben Zion Kranitz
* Yeruchom Levovitz

Belarus|

| Yeshivos|

* Baranovich Yeshiva
* Grodno Yeshiva
* Kaminetz Yeshiva
* Kobrin Yeshiva
* Mir Yeshiva
* Novardok Yeshiva
* Pinsk Yeshiva-Novardok
* Radin Yeshiva
* Slonim Yeshiva
* Slutsk-Kletsk Yeshiva
* Volozhin Yeshiva
* Tomchei Tmimim

|

Notable roshei yeshiva|

* Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin
* Eliezer Yehuda Finkel
* Yosef Yozel Horwitz
* Yisrael Meir Kagan
* Elya Baruch Kammai
* Aharon Kotler
* Moshe Landynski
* Boruch Ber Leibowitz
* Isser Zalman Meltzer
* Pesach Pruskin
* David Rappoport
* Shimon Shkop
* Chaim Soloveitchik
* Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik
* Chaim Leib Tiktinsky
* Naftoli Trop
* Chaim of Volozhin
* Yitzhak of Volozhin
* Elchonon Wasserman
* Shabsi Yogel

Notable mashgichim|

* Shlomo Harkavy
* Yisroel Yaakov Lubchansky
* Yosef Leib Nenedik
* Zalman Dolinsky
* Sheftel Kramer

Poland|

| Yeshivos|

* Keser Torah Radomsk
* Lomza Yeshiva
* Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva
* Mesivta of Warsaw
* Novardok Yeshiva

|

Notable roshei yeshiva|

* Aryeh Tzvi Frumer
* Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky
* Meir Dan Plotzky
* David Moshe Rabinowicz
* Meir Shapiro
* Avraham Yoffen

Notable mashgichim|

* Moshe Rosenstain
* Yehuda Leib Nekritz

Slovakia|

| Yeshivos|

* Nitra Yeshiva
* Pressburg Yeshiva

|

Notable roshei yeshiva|

* Akiva Sofer
* Avraham Shmuel Binyamin Sofer
* Moses Sofer
* Simcha Bunim Sofer
* Shmuel Dovid Ungar

Western
Europe|

| Yeshivos|

* Gateshead Yeshiva
* Heide Yeshiva
* Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary
* Manchester Yeshiva
* Montreaux Yeshiva
* Torah Lehranstalt
* Yeshivas Chachmei Tzorfas

|

Notable roshei yeshiva|

* Eliyahu Botchko
* Solomon Breuer
* Joseph Breuer
* Chaim Yitzchok Chaiken
* Azriel Hildesheimer
* David Zvi Hoffmann
* Avrohom Eliyahu Kaplan
* Nachman Dovid Landinski
* Moshe Yitzchak Segal
* Shraga Feivel Shapiro
* Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg

Related articles|

* Yeshivas in World War II
* Vaad HaYeshivos

Category

55°38′N 22°56′E﻿ / ﻿55.633°N 22.933°E﻿ / 55.633; 22.933
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template