ר׳ אליעזר יהודה פינקל

ר׳ אליעזר יהודה פינקל (c. 1879–1965), known as Reb Leizer Yudel, led the Mir Yeshiva in Europe and re-established it in Jerusalem. Born in Kelm to ר׳ נתן צבי פינקל, the Alter of Slabodka, and Gittel Wolpert, he grew up in Slabodka and studied at Telz, Brisk under ר׳ חיים הלוי סולובייצ׳יק, Slutsk, Radin and Mir. In 1903 he married Malka, daughter of Mir’s rosh yeshiva ר׳ אליהו ברוך קמאי, joined the faculty and became its leader after his father-in-law’s death in 1917. He rebuilt the yeshiva after a 1911 fire and guided it through wartime exile and its interwar expansion into an international academy. Seeking visas for his students, he reached Mandatory Palestine before the Holocaust. The student body escaped separately through Lithuania, Japan and Shanghai under ר׳ חיים שמואלביץ. In 1944 he opened a Jerusalem branch with ten students, first in Meah Shearim and then Beit Yisrael; it became the renewed Mir Yeshiva. He supported other institutions and helped establish the Brisk yeshiva of ר׳ יצחק זאב הלוי סולובייצ׳יק. His lectures were edited as דברי אליעזר. He died in Jerusalem and was buried on Har HaMenuchot.