Creator Bio
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.
Content by Elhanan Wasserman
Primary Source
The Opinion of the Torah: Illuminating the Present Jewish Condition According to the Light of the Torah
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…
Primary Source
Tractate: The Onset of the Messiah
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…
Primary Source
Periodization of the Eras and the Evolution of the Generations
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…