Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim (also known as the Rabbinical Seminary of America) is an Orthodox yeshiva based in Kew Gardens Hills, Queens, New York, United States. It is primarily an American, non-chasidic ultra-orthodox Talmudic yeshiva. The yeshiva is legally titled Rabbinical Seminary of America (RSA) but is often referred to as just Chofetz Chaim as that was the nickname of its namesake, Yisroel Meir Kagan. It has affiliate branches in Israel and North America. History The Yeshiva was established in 1933 by Rabbi Dovid Leibowitz, a great-nephew of the Chofetz Chaim. Leibowitz was a disciple of Nosson Tzvi Finkel and he also studied under Naftoli Trop at the Yeshiva in Radun, Belarus. The yeshiva was named for Leibowitz's great uncle, Rabbi Yisroel Meir Kagan, who had died that year. It is officially named Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yisrael Meir HaKohen, but is often referred to simply as Chofetz Chaim (), which is commonly used as a name for Kagan, after his book with the same title. Chofetz Chaim means "Seeker/Desirer [of] Life" in Hebrew. The Yeshiva's first building was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In December 1955 it relocated to Forest Hills, Queens. Most recently, at the start of the 2003 academic year the Yeshiva relocated to Kew Gardens Hills, Queens. After Leibowitz died in December 1941, he was succeeded as head by his son, Henoch Leibowitz, a role held in the 21st century by Dovid Harris and Akiva Grunblatt. The yeshiva houses a boys secondary school or Mesivta, an undergraduate ashiva, and a rabbinical school that grants Semicha (ordination). Rabbinical students at the yeshiva often spend a decade or more there, studying a traditional yeshiva curriculum focusing on Talmud, mussar ("ethics"), and halakha ("Jewish law"). Characteristics There are six primary characteristics of Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim of Queens that distinguish it from other Yeshivos: An emphasis upon unfolding the latent processes of reasoning within the steps of the Talmudic sugya ("section") being studied. The methodology places emphasis on the notion that the initial assumptions of the Talmud must be highly rigorous, and that the movement between the initial thought process (known as the hava aminah) of the Talmudic sugya to the final thought process (known as the maskana) must be fully unfolded and understood. An approach to ethical and Biblical texts and its commentaries that emphasizes rigor. The yeshiva promotes the idea that ideally, a deduction from these texts should be "logically and textually compelling."