Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz

A few days after Sukkot 1978, Shmuelevitz was rushed to the hospital and, for the next two months, was gravely ill. Moshe Feinstein said, "The world rested upon Reb Chaim's shoulders." Jews worldwide prayed for his recovery. Two months later on the third of Tevet, Shmuelevitz died at the age of 76. Nearly 100,000 mourners attended his funeral. He is buried on Har HaMenuchot.

These and other details were part of the 1966 testimony given by Shmulevitz and his wife to Yad VaShem.

In 1947 the yeshiva moved again — as always, as a single unit — this time, to the United States, where Shmuelevitz spent six months before rejoining his father-in-law, Finkel, in the Mirrer Yeshiva in Jerusalem. For the next 32 years, until his death in 1978, Shmuelevitz remained in Mir-Jerusalem.

With the outbreak of World War II, Mir Yeshiva was forced into exile. The students and faculty fled from Mir to Vilna, where they stayed for about two months, after which they moved to Keidan, where they managed to set up the yeshiva once more in 1940. After being ordered out of Keidan seven months later by the Communist authorities, the yeshiva divided into four groups, each numbering between eighty and one hundred students. Shmuelevitz's classes continued virtually without interruption throughout the early period of World War II, while when the yeshiva was continually in transit. In late 1940, hundreds of Mir yeshiva students obtained visas from Chiune Sugihara to travel via Siberia and Vladivostok to Japan.

His youngest son, Meir Shmulevitz, lives in Kiryat Mattersdorf, Jerusalem, and his son Avrohom is a Rosh mesivta at the Mirrer Yeshiva. Both were born in Israel. His son Rafael Halevi Shmuelevitz (1937 - 2016) was a co-Rosh Yeshiva of Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem.

Shmuelevitz married Chana Miriam, the rosh yeshiva's daughter, on the last day of Hanukkah, 3 Tevet 5690 (3 January 1930). A few years later, at the relatively young age of 31, Shmuelevitz was appointed as a maggid shiur, delivering regular lectures. Shmuelevitz's lectures were modeled on the study strategy of his mentor, Shkop, personalized in a style of his own. The hallmark of his lectures was depth combined with breadth; it was not uncommon for him to cite 20 or 30 different sources from far-flung corners of the Talmud and its commentaries during a single class. These classes attracted a wide audience, including some of the most advanced students in Mir.

In Shmuelevitz's youth, his family moved to Stutchin. Until the age of 16, he was educated by his father, who was one of the leading yeshiva lecturers in Lithuania. In 1919 Refoel Alter, who was then the rosh yeshiva of Shaar HaTorah in Grodno, died suddenly. Within a very short time, his mother died too, orphaning Shmuelevitz, his younger brother Shlomo, and two sisters.

Chaim Leib Halevi Shmuelevitz, (Hebrew: חיים לייב שמואלביץ ;1902–1979) — also spelled Shmulevitz — was a member of the faculty of the Mirrer Yeshiva for more than 40 years, in Poland, Shanghai and Jerusalem, serving as Rosh yeshiva during its sojourn in Shanghai from 1941 to 1947, and again in the Mirrer Yeshiva in Jerusalem from 1965 to 1979. He taught, guided, and inspired thousands of disciples throughout his lifetime, by word and deed, with legendary diligence and intensity in Torah study.

Shmuelevitz was born on the second day of Rosh Hashana 5663 (3 October 1902) in Kovno, Lithuania, to Rabbi Refoel Alter Shmuelevitz and Ettel (née Horowitz), a daughter of Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horwitz, known as the Alter of Novhardok.