Rav Dovid Leibowitz may have been the first to adopt the Chofetz Chaim name in America, but many subsequent mosdos would proudly carry the beloved gadol hador’s name as well
The naming of yeshivos for great rabbis seems to have been catalyzed by the 1897 Slabodka mussar split, which resulted in two yeshivos bearing the names Knesses Yisrael (for Rav Yisrael Salanter) and Knesses Beis Yitzchak (for Rav Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor). Following the 1920 passing of Rav Yosef Yoizel Horowitz, the Alter of Novardok, the yeshivah network he founded was renamed Beis Yosef. In 1925 the Gerrer Rebbe founded Yeshivah Sfas Emes in Yerushalayim, named for his father. This was followed several years later by Yeshivah Chiddushei Harim in Tel Aviv.
Early Torah day schools and yeshivos in the United States were even faster to follow suit. There was Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan (1897), Rabbi Jacob Joseph School (1900), Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin (founded 1904, renamed in 1912), Yeshivas Rabbi Solomon Kluger (1915), and Yeshivath Israel Salanter (1923).
The Radin yeshivah became Yeshivah Chofetz Chaim while its great namesake was still alive. When he was taken from this world in 1933, his great-nephew and former student Rav Dovid Leibowitz was aptly placed to found an institution carrying his illustrious name. Rav Dovid had sought the Chofetz Chaim’s advice before leaving Europe to assume a position in New York’s Yeshivah Torah Vodaath. His great-uncle’s parting message was, “The Torah was given in a midbar, go to America and the Torah will be given there.”
From its humble beginnings in a Williamsburg walk-up, Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yisrael Meir HaKohen grew into a Torah empire that was inherited by his son Rav Henoch following Rav Dovid’s sudden petirah in 1941. When Rav Moshe Feinstein was menachem avel Rav Henoch, he said, “Your father will be able to accomplish much more for the building of Torah in America from ‘up there’ than ‘down here.’ ”
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