Rabbi Binya-min Beinish Finkel, dean of the famous Mir Yeshiva, died here Tuesday at the age of 78.
He was buried the same day at a funeral attended by thousands of students and members of the ultra-Orthodox community.
The Mir Yeshiva, in the heart of Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim quarter, carries on the religious learning traditions of Eastern European Jewry.
Rabbi Eliezer Schach, leader of the Lithuanian religious community in Bnei Brak, delivered the eulogy at the funeral.
Finkel was the son and heir of the previous dean, Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel. He was the scion of a famous family whose rabbinic members were among the founders of the Slobodka Yeshiva in Lithuania and other major seats of Jewish learning in Europe before the Holocaust.
The Mir faculty and student body were in large measure saved from the Holocaust by fleeing across the Soviet Union and spending the war years in Shanghai.
The Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem is one of the largest and most highly regarded in Israel.
The JTA Daily News Bulletin will not be published on Monday, Feb. 19, because of the Presidents Day holiday in the United States.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
