Yechezkel Levenstein
Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein (Rav Yechezkel HaLevi Levenstein), known as Reb Chatzkel, (1885 – 18 Adar 1974), was the mashgiach ruchani of the Mir yeshiva, in Mir, Belarus and during the yeshiva's flight to Lithuania and on to Shanghai due to the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in World War II. He was a leader of several yeshivas in Europe, America, and Israel, and raised several generations of Torah-observant Jewry. He was a disciple of R' Nachum Zev Ziv son of R' Simcha Zissel Ziv. Biography. Rabbi Levenstein was born in Warsaw (5656) His mother, Zlota, died  when he was just five years old; his father, Reb Yehuda, subsequently remarried. He studied for years in the yeshiva in Łomża, where he was imbued with mussar, then in Raduń Yeshiva under the Chofetz Chaim and the famous mashgiach Rav Yeruchom Levovitz, and finally in Kelm. His rebbetzin, Chaya, was an orphan. He had "rejected glowing offers made to him by wealthy men who wanted him for their daughters" saying they would "be unable to share a life of privation and restraint and of subsisting on the bare essentials." From 5695 (1935), for about 2 years he served as  mashgiach of Yeshivas Lomza in Petach Tikvah, "despite the very difficult, poverty stricken life he led in Petach Tikvah." His impact was not only on the yeshiva but on some students who became "well known roshei yeshiva." Shanghai. News reached Shanghai Adar 5703 (1943), where the "Mir" spent the war years, of the murders of so many of Lithuanian Jewry. The eulogy of the martyrs by the "mashgiach" was published in a book, "Mimizrach Shemesh". Yeshivos. The Yeshivos that he founded or strongly influenced include: