Waserman, Elhanan
| Surname, Name The spelling of names follows “Spis imion żydowskich” [The list of Jewish first names] (Warszawa 1928), as it was the only means to avoid the doubling of people on the list. Exception was made for famous individuals whose names are widely known in another form than that proposed in “Spis”.
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Waserman, Elhanan |
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| Date of birth | 1874 |
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Location The country with which the applicant was associated. This is most often the country of which he or she was a citizen. Many cases involve a presumption of the applicant’s citizenship. People named on the list have been assigned a citizenship according to the day of the outbreak of the Second World War in their countries of origin or residence (in the case of Austria and Czechoslovakia these dates are respectively March 11 and September 28, 1938; in the case of Germany the date is prior to the NSDAP coming to power). Cases of citizenship deprivation by European countries in the years 1918–1939 have not been included. The last known citizenship has been used for stateless individuals.
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Kaunas |
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State The country with which the applicant was associated. This is most often the country of which he or she was a citizen. Many cases involve a presumption of the applicant’s citizenship. People named on the list have been assigned a citizenship according to the day of the outbreak of the Second World War in their countries of origin or residence (in the case of Austria and Czechoslovakia these dates are respectively March 11 and September 28, 1938; in the case of Germany the date is prior to the NSDAP coming to power). Cases of citizenship deprivation by European countries in the years 1918–1939 have not been included. The last known citizenship has been used for stateless individuals.
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LT |
| Document | unspecified document |
| Fate | perished |
Wasserman, Elchonon Bunim (1874–1941) – an eminent rabbi and rosh yeshiva (dean of a yeshiva) in pre-war Europe
He was born in the Polish township of Birże (Lithuanian Biržai), which then lay in the Russian partition zone (present-day Lithuania), as the son of Naftali Beinish, a shopkeeper, and Rachela Shein. In 1890, his family moved to Bowsk (Yiddish Bojsk, Latvian Bauska) – a township in present-day Latvia – where the young Elchonon commenced studies under the guidance of rabbis Eliezer Gordon and Szymon Szkop. For the next two years, he was tutored by Chaim Soloveitchik, whom he came to consider as his first rebbe (teacher and mentor).
In 1899, he married Michla, the daughter of rabbi Meir Atlas. For many years he lived at the house of his father-in-law, improving his knowledge of the Torah. Later, together with Yoel Baranchik, he opened a mesivta (an Orthodox Jewish secondary school) in Mścisław (English Mstislaw), a township that after the October Revolution was taken over by the newly-formed USSR. He soon gained recognition as an outstanding teacher. In 1921, the Soviet government allowed him and other scholars of the Torah to leave Russia. Later, when his yeshiva ran short of money, Elchonon traveled to the United States to gather funds. He returned to Poland just prior to the outbreak of war, although he was aware that in the event of a German invasion his life could be in danger.
He was one of the leaders of Agudat Yisrael and was considered as the spiritual successor to Kagan, becoming noted for his lucid and in-depth Talmudic analyses. To date, his popular works are a staple in yeshivas the world over.
After 1939, he left for Wilno. In 1941, during a visit to Kaunas, he was arrested by Lithuanian Nazi sympathizers and sent to his death along with 12 other rabbis. He was murdered by Lithuanian collaborators on 7 July (12 Tamuz) 1941 at Fort VII of Kaunas Fortress.
Wasserman had a few sons. The first, Elazar Simcha (1899–1992), was the dean of the Yeshiva Beth Yehudah in Detroit in the 1940s. In the 1950s, he established the Yeshiva Ohr Elchonon (subsequently renamed as Yeshiva Ohr Elchonon Chabad/West Coast Talmudical Seminary) in Los Angeles, California, and later also the Yeshiva Ohr Elchonon in Jerusalem. Another of his sons, David, survived the Holocaust, remarried, and moved to Brooklyn, New York. A third, Naftoli, perished in the Shoah.