Rabbi Gershon Edelstein

Rabbi Gershon Edelstein was born in 1923 in Shumyachi

Edelstein was born in 1923 in Shumyachi, near Smolensk in the Soviet Union. His father, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Edelstein, was the town's rabbi. His mother obtained false birth certificates for her sons so they would not attend state schools, and he studied Torah in secret with Chabad rabbis. His mother died of typhus while he lived with an aunt in Klimovich.

In 1934 the family sailed from Odessa to the Land of Israel and settled in Ramat HaSharon. With no religious school in the town, his father taught him at home, and a tutor taught him grammar, arithmetic and English. He later studied at the Lomza Yeshiva in Petah Tikva.

In the winter of 1943 to 1944 he was among the first 6 students of the new Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak. Its founder, Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, had him teach young Holocaust refugees, and later appointed him a teacher at the yeshiva. He married Hanya Rachel, daughter of Rabbi Yehoshua Zelig Diskin.

He served as rosh yeshiva of Ponevezh from 2000 and was president of the Vaad Hayeshivos. After the death of Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman in 2017, he led Degel HaTorah with Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky. From March 2022 he led the Litvak Haredi public alone, until his death in 2023.