the Lithuanian government announced its decision to accredit only those rabbinical colleges that possessed a secular studies department. The Rabbinical College of Telshe was the only such institute, although secular studies were only in its mechina. A kollel (postgraduate institute) opened in 1922, to train graduates for the rabbinate. Bloch's son-in-law Chaim Mordechai Katz was dean (rosh hakollel). Yavneh In 1918, a teachers training institute was opened in Kovno but did not achieve much success. In 1925 The Yavneh School for the Training of Teachers reopened in Telz under the auspices of The Rabbinical College of Telshe. This served as a postgraduate institute, with the charter of producing teachers for Jewish schools. The curriculum at the teacher's institute included educational skills, Hebrew Bible, Talmud, the Hebrew language and literature and mathematics. For many years the Jewish community in Lithuania had lacked a structured educational system for teenage girls. In 1927 a high school department for girls was established in Telshe. In 1930, a sister institute to The Yavneh Teacher's Training Institute was opened by Rabbi Joseph Leib Bloch of Telz. The school offered a two-year course to young women. These various schools were all incorporated as a part of The Rabbinical College of Telshe. In October 1930 Yosef Leib Bloch died and his second oldest son, Avraham Yitzchak Bloch succeeded him as both community rabbi and rosh yeshiva. Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Bloch . In the 1930s older students in the yeshiva were selected to teach for periods of time at new schools in small towns where there had previously been little or no structured schooling, and then return to continue their studies at the yeshiva. Rabinowitz died the year Yosef Leib Bloch and his son Azriel Rabinowitz, was appointed as a rosh yeshiva. In 1933, the yeshiva built a new building to house the mechina ("preparatory school"). The Holocaust In the Fall of 1939, the Russians were allowed to bring troops into Lithuania on the pretext of defending the country. In June 1940, the Russians seized control of the country and quickly transformed it into a "soviet socialist republic." As part of this transformation, private Jewish organizations and schools were disbanded and the yeshiva was closed. Most of the students dispersed, with only about a hundred students remaining in Telshe. The learning was done in groups of 20-25 students, studying in various batai medrashim ("small synagogues") led by the rosh