From Tea to Torah: The Unsung Heroes Behind Ponevezh Yeshiva

It was the year 1911 in the city of Ponevezh. The city’s rabbi, Rabbi Yitzchak Yaakov Rabinowitz, was filled with joy. His meeting the previous year in Moscow with Mrs. Liba Gavronsky had finally borne fruit: she had approved a remarkably generous monthly budget to support a group of young Torah scholars in his city.

Rabbi Rabinowitz wrote to his friend, Rabbi Chaim Yitzchak Karp, the rabbi of Plungė:

“I wish to inform you that, thank God, I succeeded during my recent visit to Moscow in founding the institution I had envisioned for some time, aided by the donation of Mrs. Gavronsky, daughter of Wissotzky. She has agreed to sustain twelve students in Ponevezh, each receiving fifteen rubles a month, and eight married scholars, each receiving thirty rubles a month. The funds will be sent by her every month. With God’s help, the initiative will begin immediately after Passover. For now, I ask that you find appropriate candidates—talented and God-fearing.”

Thus, with great effort, Rabbi Yitzchak Rabinowitz—affectionately known as Rabbi Itzele of Ponevezh—succeeded in establishing a small but meaningful “group” of twelve unmarried scholars and eight married students. Yet there were not enough suitable candidates in Ponevezh itself, so he sought them from other towns.

Many of the great yeshivas we know today were named after the towns in which they were founded. Though often small in number, they illuminated the entire Torah world, despite being located in remote areas. The Radin Yeshiva, led by Rabbi Naftali Trop and the revered Chofetz Chaim, was situated in a distant village. Ponevezh, however, was no village—it was the fifth-largest city in Lithuania. Located along the route between Riga and Vilnius, it was a central hub with a commercial railway station. Jews had settled there about a century earlier, and by this time several thousand lived in the city. And yet, there were not even twenty scholars capable of dedicating themselves fully to Torah study.

Just as Torah scholars were scarce, so too were donors willing to support Torah learning. Who, then, was Mrs. Liba Gavronsky, whose heart moved her to contribute such a substantial sum?

She was the daughter of Kalonymus Wolf Wissotzky, the renowned Moscow tea magnate known as “Russia’s Tea King.” Wissotzky was himself a learned Lithuanian scholar, having studied at the Volozhin Yeshiva and been a disciple of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, the founder of the Musar movement. The rabbi of Moscow, Rabbi Yaakov Mazeh, wrote of him:

“He was a student and protégé of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, who influenced him so decisively that he truly became a practitioner of Musar in every sense.”

In the late nineteenth century, Wissotzky recognized the commercial potential of tea and established a high-quality branded tea empire that swept across Russia and beyond. By 1903, he controlled 35 percent of Russia’s tea trade. He was granted the title “Honorary Citizen of Russia” and became the official tea supplier to the Czar. In 1907, a major branch opened in London, and in 1935, another was established in Tel Aviv.

Rabbi Mazeh recalled:

“Several times, when his health was already failing, I asked him why he worked so hard and exhausted himself with tea matters. He replied that this was what he learned in the yeshiva of his great teacher, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter—that a person is obligated to work until his final breath.”

In time, the entire company relocated to Israel, where it now supplies approximately 78 percent of the country’s tea consumption. Kalonymus Wissotzky's success was no coincidence; his business acumen and values sustained the company’s leadership for over 130 years. In his will, he bequeathed one million rubles to charity, distributing the remainder among his daughters and sons-in-law. He wrote:

“Know, my children, that my intention in my extensive labors was not only to amass wealth, but also so that I might do good for others from my abundance. And I would not boast falsely if I tell you—and you know it—that I sowed for charity as much as my hand could, and I did everything in my power to do so.”

Among the values he passed on was a deep commitment to supporting Torah. One of his daughters, Liba Gavronsky, embodied this legacy, dedicating vast resources to Torah scholars and enabling the founding of the first Torah “group” in Ponevezh.

After World War I, Rabbi Yitzchak of Ponevezh passed away. By 1920, the city was home to approximately 8,000 Jews, and Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman established the Ohel Yitzchak Yeshiva, named in Rabbi Yitzchak’s memory. Rabbi Kahaneman was a member of the Council of Lithuanian Rabbis, which comprised 171 rabbis.

During the Holocaust, nearly all of Ponevezh’s Jewish population was murdered. Only seventy Jews survived, among them Rabbi Kahaneman—the sole surviving member of the Council of Lithuanian Rabbis. He immigrated to the Land of Israel and, following the guidance of the Chazon Ish, established the Ponevezh Yeshiva there. It grew to become one of the largest and most influential yeshivas in Israel—owing, in no small measure, to the foundations laid decades earlier by the Wissotzky family, who had planted the very first seeds of Torah in Ponevezh.