Elazar Menachem Man Shach (, Elazar Shach; January 1, 1899 O.S. – November 2, 2001) was a prominent ultra-Orthodox rabbi, heading the non-Hasidic Litvak Orthodox from the early 1970s until his death. He served as chair of the Council of Sages, and as one of three co-deans of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, along with Shmuel Rozovsky and Dovid Povarsky. Due to his differences with the Hasidic leadership of the Agudat Yisrael political party, he allied with Ovadia Yosef, with whom he founded the Shas party in 1984. Later, in 1988, Shach sharply criticized Ovadia Yosef, saying that, "Sepharadim are not yet ready for leadership positions", and subsequently founded the Degel HaTorah political party representing the Litvaks in the Israeli Knesset. Early life Elazar Menachem Man Shach was born in Vabalninkas (Vaboilnik in Yiddish), a rural village in northern Lithuania, to Ezriel and Batsheva Shach (nee Levitan). The Shach family had been merchants for generations, while the Levitans were religious scholars who served various Lithuanian communities. As a child, Shach was considered an illui (child prodigy) and in 1909, aged 11, went to Panevėžys to study at the Ponevezh Yeshiva which was then headed by Isaac Jacob Rabinowitz. In 1913 he enrolled at Yeshivas Knesses Yisrael in Slabodka. When World War I began in 1914, many of the Slabodka yeshiva students were dispersed across Europe. Shach initially returned to his family, but then began traveling across Lithuania from town to town, sleeping and eating wherever he could, while continuing to study Torah. During this period he described suffering considerable deprivation, living with inadequate sanitation and being compelled to wear tattered clothing and worn out shoes. He reportedly sequestered himself in an attic for two years not knowing where his parents were. In 1915, following the advice of Yechezkel Bernstein (author of Divrei Yechezkel), Shach traveled to Slutsk to study at the yeshiva there. Escaping to the British Mandate of Palestine Shortly before the start of World War II and the Holocaust, several yeshivas began considering evacuating their rabbis, students, and families. Aharon Kotler escaped to the United States, traveling across Siberia and arriving in the United States during the war. In 1939, Shach first went to Vilna, where he stayed with Chaim Ozer Grodzinski. Later that year, both Shach's mother and his eldest daughter fell ill, and died. In early 1940, the Shach family decided to leave Lithuania. Shach's