Leadership
After his marriage, Rabbi Epstein moved to his wife's hometown, in Kovno, and was joined there two years later by Rabbi Meltzer, following his marriage to Rabbi Epstein's sister-in-law, Baila Hinda Frank. In Kovno, the two scholars studied under the renowned mussar master, one of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter's foremost disciples: Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer, known in yeshivos as "Reb Itzele Peterburger". It was there that they became intrigued with the study of mussar.
In 1894, both rabbis started teaching in the famed Slabodka yeshiva, which was not far from Kovno. In 1897, the Alter of Slabodka (Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel; Slabodka's famed mashgiach ruchani, invited Rabbi Epstein to become the rosh yeshiva. Rabbi Epstein accepted the post, while Rabbi Meltzer moved to the town of Slutsk to lead the Ridvaz's yeshiva there. The Slabodka yeshiva flourished under the joint leadership of Rabbis Eptein and Finkel, and many of its students were crucial in nurturing the spiritual level of the Jewish people in subsequent generations. For a list of notables, see Slabodka yeshiva.
In 1924, Rabbi Epstein, the Alter, and most of the yeshiva, relocated to Hebron, in what was then British Mandate for Palestine. The yeshiva thrived for five years in Hebron as it had in Lithuania. In late August 1929, Arab mobs, incited by the antisemitic Mufti of Jerusalem, swarmed the yeshiva, killing 68 Jews and wounding many more, in an event now known as the 1929 Hebron massacre. In the aftermath, the British authorities evacuated the rest of the Jewish community. The yeshiva was relocated to the Geula section of Jerusalem. In 1975 Chevron Yeshiva moved to its current location in Givat Mordechai.
Read more about this topic: Moshe Mordechai Epstein
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