Avraham Kalmanowitz

Avraham Kalmanowitz (also Abraham; Hebrew: אברהם קלמנוביץ; March 8, 1887 – 15 February 1964) was an Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva (dean) of the Mir yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York from 1946 to 1964. Born in Russian Empire, he served as rabbi of several Eastern European Jewish communities and escaped to the United States in 1940 following the German occupation of Poland. In the U.S. he was an activist for the rescue of the millions of Jews trapped in Nazi-ruled Europe and in the Soviet Union. He arranged the successful transfer of the entire Mir yeshiva from Lithuania to Shanghai, providing for its support for five years, and obtaining visas and travel fare to bring all 250 students and faculty to America after World War II. He established the U.S. branch of the Mir in 1946. In the 1950s he aided North African and Syrian Jewish youth suffering from persecution and pogroms, and successfully lobbied for the passage of a bill granting "endangered refugee status" to Jewish emigrants from Arab lands.