Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz

Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz was born in 1902 in Kaunas

Shmuelevitz was born in Kovno, Lithuania, on 3 October 1902. His father was Rabbi Refoel Alter Shmuelevitz, and his mother Ettel was a daughter of Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horwitz, the Alter of Novhardok. His family moved to Stutchin, and he became known as Chaim Stutchiner.

He studied with his father until the age of 16. In 1919 his father died, and his mother died soon after. He studied at the Shaar HaTorah yeshiva in Grodno under Rabbi Shimon Shkop, who shaped his method and appointed him to teach younger students.

He later moved to the Mir Yeshiva and married Chana Miriam, daughter of its head, Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, in 1930. He became a lecturer there and was known for citing many sources in each class.

During World War II the yeshiva fled to Vilna, Keidan, Kobe and then Shanghai. With Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein, he ran the yeshiva in Shanghai and handled the finances of other yeshivas there. He refused American visas for his family until all students had visas.

After a stay in the United States, he moved to the Land of Israel and helped found the Mir Yeshiva there. In 1965 he became its rosh yeshiva. He died on 1 January 1979 and was buried on Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem.