Ponevezh Yeshiva, often pronounced as Ponevitch Yeshiva (), is a yeshiva founded in 1908 in Ponevezh, Lithuania, and located today in Bnei Brak, Israel since 1944. The yeshiva has over three thousand students, including those of affiliated institutions, and is considered one of the leading Litvish yeshivas in Israel. History Founded in 1908, the yeshiva was originally located in city of Panevėžys (Ponevezh), Lithuania before the Holocaust. After the death of its founder, Yitzhak Yaakov Rabinovich, the yeshiva was re-established in Bnei Brak in 1944 by Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, who appointed Shmuel Rozovsky as dean, and some years later appointed Dovid Povarsky as rosh yeshiva. The main study hall has an original 16th-century Italian wooden aron kodesh (Torah scroll ark), brought to the yeshiva in the early 1980s, and restored and re-gilded with 22 carat gild leaf. Split into two factions During the 1990s, leadership of the yeshiva was the subject of a public disagreement between two of its leaders. Since then, the yeshiva has split and resulted in two yeshivas in the same building, with the students occupying different dormitories, though studying in the same learning hall and eating in the same dining room. The Kahaneman faction of the yeshiva is led by rabbis Gershon Eidelstein and Berel Povarsky (son of Dovid Povarsky) and Chaim Peretz Berman (a grandson of The Steipler, and a son-in-law of Kahanaman). The Markovitz faction of the yeshiva is led by rabbis Shmuel Markovitz, Asher Deutch, and Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler. Notable teachers Rabbis who have taught at the yeshiva include: Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, founder and rosh yeshiva in Lithuania and Israel Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler (1892–1953), mashgiach ruchani, author of the Michtav me-Eliyahu Yechezkel Levenstein (1895–1974), mashgiach ruchani, author of Or Yechezkel Shmuel Rozovsky, rosh yeshiva Dovid Povarsky, rosh yeshiva Elazar Menachem Man Shach, rosh yeshiva Chaim Friedlander, mashgiach, co-compiler of Michtav me-Eliyahu and author of the well known Sifsei Chaim series (not to be confused with the Liska Rebbe of the same name) Baruch Dov Povarsky, commonly called R' Berel, rosh yeshiva Gershon Edelstein, rosh yeshiva and spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah political party in Israel Notable alumni Alumni include the following rabbis: Pinchas Goldschmidt Shraga Feivish Hager, Kosover rebbe Dr. Mordechai Halperin, Chief Officer of Medical Ethics for the Israeli Ministry of Health, director of the Dr. Falk Schlesinger Institute Meir Kessler Dov Landau Israel Meir Lau, former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of