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See also Torah study
Traditionally, every town rabbi had the right to maintain a number of full-time pupils in the town's study hall (beth midrash, usually adjacent to the synagogue). Their cost of living was covered by community taxation. After a number of years, these young people would either take up a vacant rabbinical position elsewhere (after obtaining semicha, rabbinical ordination) or join the workforce.
The Mishna (tractate Megilla) mentions the law that a town can only be called a "city" if it supports ten men (batlanim) to make up the required quorum for communal prayers. Likewise, every rabbinical court ( beth din) was attended by a number of pupils up to three times the size of the court ( Mishna, tractate Sanhedrin). These might be indications of the historicity of the classical yeshiva.
As indicated by the Talmud, adults generally took off two months a year (Ellul and Adar, the months preceding the harvest) to pursue full-time Torah study.
Organised Torah study was revolutionised by Rabbi Chaim Volozhin, a disciple of the Vilna Gaon (an influential 18th century leader of Orthodox Judaism). In his view, the traditional arrangement did not cater for those who were looking for more intensive study.
With the support of his teacher, Reb Chaim gathered a large number of interested students and started a yeshiva in the (now Belarusian) town of Volozhin. Although this institution was closed some 60 years later by the Russian government, a number of yeshivot opened in other towns and cities, most notably Ponovezh, Mir, Brisk and Telz (note: these are the Yiddish names of the Lithuanian and Polish towns). Many prominent contemporary yeshivot in the USA and Israel are continuations of these institutions and often bear the same name.
While most of the early yeshivos originated in Lithuania, by the early 1900sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s Years: 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 Events and Trends Technology Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first doc there existed many yeshivoth in PolandThe Republic of Poland a country in Central Europe, lies between Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, and the Baltic Sea, Lithuania and Russia (in the form of the Kaliningrad Oblast exclave) t. The first yeshivah in Poland was started by Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam, and was known as the Bobover Yeshivah. His work was continued by his son Rabbi Benzion Halberstam, originally in the town Bobov itself but later branching into as many as sixty satellite yeshivoth. Chassidic youth in Poland flocked to Bobov have the opportunity to speak with Rabbi Halberstam in private.
The yeshivoth ceased operation during the Second World War, and Rabbi Halberstam died at the hands of the Nazis. His son, Rabbi Solomon Halberstam, however recreated Bobov in Brooklyn, New York, with less than hundred of the thousands of followers that perished in Poland. At the time of his death in 2000, the Bobov institutions had educated thousands of students, and continued under the leadership of his sons Rabbi Naftali and (later) Rabbi Benzion.