ר׳ אלחנן בונם וסרמן

ר׳ אלחנן בונם וסרמן (1874–1941) was a leading Lithuanian rosh yeshiva, Talmudist, Agudath Israel thinker, and close disciple of ר׳ ישראל מאיר הכהן. Born in Biržai, he studied at Telz under ר׳ אליעזר גורדון and ר׳ שמעון יהודה שקופ, then spent two formative years in Brisk with ר׳ חיים הלוי סולובייצ׳יק. After marriage to Michla Atlas he taught in Mstislavl, studied in the Kodashim kollel at Radin, and headed a yeshiva in Brest. During the First World War he led the displaced Radin students in Smilavichy. In 1921, at his teacher’s direction, he became rosh yeshiva of Ohel Torah in Baranovichi, building it into an institution of roughly three hundred students. His sharply organized analytical teachings circulated widely and were later collected as קובץ שיעורים, קובץ הערות and related volumes; קובץ מאמרים preserved his forceful religious and political essays. A 1937–1939 fundraising mission took him across the United States, but he returned to his students. War drove him to Vilna. While visiting Kovno in July 1941, he and other rabbis were seized by Lithuanian collaborators and murdered at the Seventh Fort. His final address, calling for repentance and communal solidarity, became an enduring Holocaust testimony.