Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman Rosh Yeshivas Ponovezh

Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, Rosh Yeshiva of Ponovezh (1886-1969). Born in Kuhl, Lithuania, a small town of about 500 of which about a third were Jews. At the age of 14 he went to the Telshe Yeshiva, where he learned until he was twenty. He then spent a half year in Novardok, after which he spent three years in Radin under the Chafetz Chaim. He married the daughter of the rov of Vidzh, and took over there at the end of 1911, when his father-in-law became the rov of Wilkomir. With the passing of Rav Itzele Rabinowitz on the 21st of Adar I in 1919, Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman was appointed the new rav of Ponevezh at the age of 33. He was elected to the Lithuanian parliament. He immigrated to Israel in 1940 and built Kiryat HaYeshiva in Bnei Brak and Batei Avot orphanages.