Rav Yeruchom Levovitz, whose Hebrew name was ירוחם ליוואוויץ and was also known as The Mashgiach by his hundreds of students, was a famous mashgiach ruchani and baal mussar (Jewish Ethics) at the Mir yeshiva in Belarus. He was born in 1875 (5635 in the Jewish calendar) in Lyuban, Minsk Voblast, Belarus (near Slutsk), to Avraham and Chasya Levovitz. Rav Yeruchom received his education in the yeshivas of Slobodka and Kelm and was a disciple of Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel and Rav Simcha Zissel Ziv of Kelm.

Rabbi Yeruchom Levovitz was the spiritual leader of the Mir Yeshiva in Belarus until he died in 1936. His disciples were said to have followed his every word, never doing anything they "felt" he would not want them to do. Most of the leaders of the yeshivas of inter-war Poland were Levovitz's disciples, and they would come on occasion to visit him and seek his advice. After World War II, much of orthodox Jewry in Europe and their many yeshivas (Jewish schools of higher learning) were wiped out. One of the only yeshivas to survive as a whole body was the Mir Yeshiva, which managed to escape to Shanghai, China, and then on to America.

Some of R' Yeruchom's better-known disciples include Simcha Zissel Halevi Levovitz, Avrohom Levovitz, Chaim Shmulevitz, Dovid Povarsky, Isser Yehuda Malin, Aryeh Leib Malin, Abba Berman, Zelik Epstein, Shimon Schwab, Shlomo Wolbe, Zeidel Smiatcky, Aryeh Leib Bakst, Chaim Wysoker, Binyomin Zeilberger, and Nachum Patrovitz. His many discourses and lectures are preserved for posterity in the following sefarim: "Daas Torah," "Daas Chochma U'Mussar," "Shvivai Daas," and "Sifsai Daas on Pirkei Avos," which are a staple of many yeshiva libraries today, as well as many Orthodox Jewish households. He died on the 18th of Sivan in the year 1936 at the age of sixty-three. He is buried in the town of Mir, Belarus, and his grave site (recently rebuilt by his family) is a common destination for the many Jewish tourists who visit the decimated cities of pre-war Eastern Europe.

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