Kleck was famous especially in America in the last 17 years, since the head of the yeshiva R’ Aharon Kotler settled there. From all parts of the States students throng to the American abode of the Kleck yeshiva. The yeshiva has revived. It does not ‘ordain’ rabbis for careers. In the yeshiva the students go through a process of advanced studies and spiritual transcendence. Torah study in the yeshiva is not a preparation for life but the essence of life.

Yeshiva Etz Khayim had 3 abodes. Its birth was in Slutzk. At the end of the 19th century, the chief rabbi in Slutzk was the gaon R’ Yaakov David son of Zeev (RIDB”Z), author of the interpretation to the Talmud Yerushalmi. He wished to establish a yeshiva in Slutzk. In 1897, the mashgiakh from Slovodka known as the “senior”, sent him 14 of his best students headed by gaon R’ Issar Zalman Meltzer. Almost all of those 14 first students became later heads of yeshivas or a rabbi. Among them – according to the chief rabbi and head of yeshiva in Petakh Tikva –

1. R’ Eliezer Yehuda Findel – head of the yeshiva in Mir.

2. R’ Yoseph Kanovitz – head of the yeshiva in Tzfat and later president of the Rabbis Association in the U.S.A.

3. R’ Leib Flatzianski – head of the yeshiva in Doinsk.

4. R’ Yom Tov Vactfoigel – chief rabbi in Montreal, Canada.

5. R’ Pesakh Frumkin Chief rabbi and head of the yeshiva in Kobryn

6. R’ Yoseph Rubinshtein, Rabbi in Vilnius.

7. R’ Refael HaLevi (alter Lubcher Shmuilovitz) – head of the yeshiva in Stochin,

8. R’ Barukh Rabinovitz – rabbi in the Vilner synagogue in Chicago,

9, R’ Yitzkhak Ziv, City rabbi in Briensk ,

10, R’ Shlomo Moris, rabbi in Dvinsk,

11 R’ Lipman Dannenberger

12. R’ Moshe Yom Tov Hekhtman

13. The prodigy of Krasmi.

We could not reach any details about the last three.

Next, about Aharon Kotler Born: Soslovitz 1892. Came to yeshiva in Slutsk in 1911. Married Isar Zalman melzer’s daughter in 1914. After October revolution, leads students to cross Soviet-Polish border and founds Yeshiva of Kletsk. When the growth of the yeshiva demanded more resources he traveled in American and Europe to get the means. In 1939, the number of students- 200. Considered as Morals yeshiva. In 1940 the yeshiva moved to Vilnius. When Lithuenia was annexed to Soviet Russia and the students started to be exiled to the north of Russia, the yeshiva was divided into small groups and moved to various shtetls in Lithuania and Latvia. R’ Aharon was in Saluk. In 1941 he managed to get to the States and worked to save the students. Some groups managed to reach the States through Japan.