Elhanan Wasserman

1875–1941

Elhanan Bunim Wasserman, born in Birz, Lithuania, was a disciple of the Hafetz Chaim (Israel Meir Kagan). Wasserman served as head of the yeshiva in Brisk [today, Brest-Litovsk, Belarus] from 1910 to 1914, and he was one of the Lithuanian Misnagdic rabbis who promoted the Brisker method of Talmud study in his yeshiva Ohel Torah in Baranovitsh [today, Brest-Litovsk, Belarus]. He was active in Agudas Yisroel (Agudat Israel), strongly opposing Zionism in particular and nationalism in general. He was murdered by Lithuanian Nazi collaborators.

Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator

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The Opinion of the Torah: Illuminating the Present Jewish Condition According to the Light of the Torah

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Written on the Occasion of the Ritual Slaughter Decree in Poland, 1936 [Parliament considered a bill to have animals killed by electricity, rather than by a knife, as required by Jewish law. The bill…

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Tractate: The Onset of the Messiah

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4. [ . . . ] The Gaon of Vilna writes [in his Even Shelemah] that the second chapter of Vayishla? is the chapter of the “footsteps of the Messiah.” When Jacob returned from his…

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Periodization of the Eras and the Evolution of the Generations

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Rabbi Elhanan related: “I once asked the Hafetz Chaim: “Granted that we are accustomed to a division of eras in Jewish religious history—the Tannaitic era separately, and the Amoraic era separately…