Born Vilkomir, Lithuania, October 1, 1911. Died Tel Aviv, February 23, 2009, aged 97.
April 29, 2009 16:26Scion of a well-known rabbinic family, Rabbi Avraham Kahaneman continued his father’s pioneering work, heading what was to become the world’s largest yeshivah complex — the Bnei Brak-based Ponevitch Yeshivah, writes Mordechai Beck.
Proving himself a worthy son of a charismatic father, at 16 he was admitted to the prestigious Polish yeshivah of Mir, where he was an outstanding student. In 1939, threatened with conscription in the shadow of the Second World War, he moved to Palestine to continue his studies at the relocated Mir Yeshivah in Jerusalem.
In 1944, he moved to Bnei Brak to help his father. Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, a dynamic personality, escaped to Palestine in early 1940 on a diplomatic passport and re-established his Ponevitch Yeshivah, named after the Lithuanian town where he had founded it. His wife and his three other children perished.
Soon after the Second World War, Avraham married Rivka Knoller, daughter of the leader of the Berlin Jewish community, and began his fundraising travels, a role for which his engaging personality was ideally suited.
Though based mainly in the USA, he often visited the UK, where he had many supporters from both the Orthodox and less religious communities.
On his father’s death in 1969, Rabbi Avraham was appointed president of the Ponevitch Yeshivah, co-directing it with five others. The yeshivah complex expanded from under 1,000 students to its present size of some 8,000. This includes some 1,000 regular yeshivah students and 900 kollel (married) students. Other students work in the extensive Ponevitch educational institutions in and beyond Bnei Brak.
Rabbi Kahaneman continued his globe-trotting, giving encouragement to local communities and fund-raising, even though Israel government agencies had begun funding yeshivot. Despite his crucial role in keeping Ponevitch solvent, independent, and academically in the top ranking, he characteristically stayed in the background.
Deteriorating health brought him back to Israel. His last 10 years saw him withdraw from an active role.
In his absence, the yeshivah became embroiled in a succession battle between his son, Rabbi Eliezer Kahaneman, and son-in-law, Rabbi Shmuel Markovitch, married to his daughter, Tzipporah.
He is survived by his wife who, in a surprise move, was named in his will as successor in his yeshivah role, and by his son and daughter, together with numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.