Ponevezh Yeshiva Receives Pre-Holocaust Documents

Historic meeting (Photo: Yehuda Achishalom)

Rabbi Eliezer Kahaneman, president of Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, received a binder of historic documents this week during a meeting with Knesset member Uri Maklev. The materials, discovered in Lithuanian state archives, contain official records from the original Ponevezh Yeshiva in the Lithuanian city of Panevėžys during the 1920s and 1930s.

The documents reached Maklev through Lithuania's ambassador to Israel, Audrius Brožga, who initiated the search following a visit to the yeshiva in Bnei Brak approximately eight months ago. The ambassador compiled official certificates from municipal offices and courts in Panevėžys that document the activities of the late Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman (the Ponevezher Rav) during the interwar period. During their hour-long meeting, Rabbi Kahaneman examined the records while sharing stories about his grandfather and the community that was destroyed in the Holocaust.

Among the materials presented were a 1922 building permit for a three-story brick structure and a 1937 court ruling recognizing Rabbi Kahaneman's property rights to a 1,537-square-meter plot on Ramygalos Street in Panevėžys. The current yeshiva president studied the lot dimensions, architectural plans, and legal decisions.

During the meeting, Rabbi Kahaneman shared an account illustrating his grandfather's meticulous integrity. A teacher with German citizenship who worked in the Ponevezh educational institutions managed to escape to pre-state Israel as danger descended on Europe. His departure was so hasty that the administration never paid his final salary.

The Ponevezher Rav did not forget this debt. After arriving in Israel and beginning to rebuild the Torah world that had been destroyed, he personally searched for the teacher throughout the country. When asked why he was taking such trouble, he explained that he had always paid every employee down to the last penny, and this man was the only exception due to the chaotic circumstances of his flight. When the Rav located him, he paid not only the outstanding salary but full severance for all his years of service.

Rabbi Kahaneman also recounted a visit he himself made to Panevėžys and the remnants of Lithuania's destroyed Jewish world. At the historic Bais Yaakov seminary building, the current administrator emerged to meet the delegation. Seeing the rabbis in traditional dress, she appeared startled and quickly clarified: "We didn't do this. The Russians destroyed and altered the building. We're just preserving what's here."

At the next stop, the delegation reached the building that once housed Ponevezh's small yeshiva, where Torah scholars studied for years. Today it operates as a local bakery, and the workers stood at the entrance refusing to allow the visitors inside.

Maklev with the ambassador (Photo: Yehuda Achishalom)

Among the documents, Rabbi Kahaneman identified people who worked alongside his grandfather, including Rabbi Avraham Baruch, a community leader and father-in-law of Rabbi Yosef Tzulak, along with students and associates devoted to the rabbi and yeshiva. He also mentioned a letter sent to his grandfather from a displaced persons camp immediately after World War II: students who survived the Holocaust had heard their rabbi was in Israel and rushed to write to him.

According to the yeshiva president, the letter expressed a connection that remained alive even after the yeshiva, the community, and the entire Jewish city had been destroyed. Rabbi Kahaneman thanked Maklev for bringing the documents and for his work with the Lithuanian embassy.

Maklev stated that beyond their historical significance, the documents restore another chapter of the Torah world that existed in Lithuania and commemorate the Ponevezher Rav's achievements even before he immigrated to Israel and re-established the yeshiva.