Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin


Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin or Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin, officially Mesivta Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, is an American Haredi Lithuanian-type boys' and men's yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York. The school's divisions include a preschool, a yeshiva ketana, a mesivta, a college-level beth midrash, and Kollel Gur Aryeh, its post-graduate kollel.

History

Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin was established in 1904 as Yeshiva Tiferes Bachurim in Brownsville, Brooklyn, by Jews who moved there from the Lower East Side of New York City, thus making it the oldest yeshiva in Kings County. At the suggestion of Meir Berlin, it was renamed in 1914 for his brother, Chaim Berlin, Chief Rabbi of Moscow and later Jerusalem, and who had also served in Valozhyn, from where several of the yeshiva's founders came. Through the help of philanthropist Jacob Rutstein, in 1940 the yeshiva purchased the seven-story former Municipal Bank Building at Pitkin and Stone Avenues in Brownsville.

Leadership

The founding Rosh Yeshiva, Yaakov Moshe Shurkin, was given the task in 1936, by Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz and a group of Brownsville NY community leaders, to establish a Yeshiva high school & post high school Yeshiva in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY - a neighborhood of over 80,000 Jews. This new fledgling yeshiva was to be attached to a neighborhood elementary school named Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin with the new high school & bais medrash divisions to be named “Mesivta Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin.”
In 1937, the Rosh Yeshiva Yaakov Moshe Shurkin learned that an acclaimed student of the Lithuanian yeshiva world, Yitzchok Hutner, had arrived in America. Shurkin, having taken notice of Hutner’s reputation as a genius, invited him to join the yeshiva’s faculty and oversee administrative affairs.
In 1942, with the yeshiva then having been established through a 3rd year post high school bais medrash, Hutner entered the study hall and told Shurkin how he will now also give talmudic lectures and they will be to 4th year and higher post high school students, effectively a higher position than that of Shurkin’s. With Hutner’s powerful personality and Shurkin’s ultimate humility, Shurkin acquiesced, and Hutner began giving his own monthly lectures to those older students as rosh yeshiva from 1943 to 1980. Shurkin continued his daily teaching until his passing in 1963.
In the late 1970s, a branch was opened in Jerusalem called Yeshiva Pachad Yitzchok "Pachad Yitzchok" being the title of Hutner's books.
After Hutner's death, the New York yeshiva was headed by his disciple Aaron Schechter, and the Jerusalem branch was headed by his son-in-law, Yonason David, who also serves nominally as co-head of the New York branch. When Schechter died in 2023, the leadership of the yeshiva passed to his son-in-law, Shlomo Halioua. Halioua died on 27 October 2024, after leading the yeshiva for only a year and a half. The leadership then passed jointly to Halioua's son Yosef Halioua and son-in-law Tzvi Fink.
The position of mashgiach ruchani has been held by Rabbis Avigdor Miller, Asher Zimmerman, Shlomo Freifeld, Shlomo Carlebach, Shimon Groner, and Mordechai Zelig Shechter. It has been vacant since the latter's passing in September 2023.

Divisions

Chaim Berlin consists of a preschool, a yeshiva ketana, a mesivta, a college-level beth midrash, and Kollel Gur Aryeh, its post-graduate kollel division. Total enrollment for all divisions approaches 2,000 students. The mesivta acts as a feeder school for the beth midrash. For a time, while located in Far Rockaway, the mesivta was headed by Shlomo Freifeld.
The yeshiva maintains a summer location, Camp Morris, in Sullivan County, New York. The Yeshiva also runs a summer youth program in Brooklyn with the name Chaim Day Camp.

Notable alumni

Notable alumni include many who served in rabbinic capacities throughout the world.