Item Description:

While the yeshiva movement spread throughout White Russia, the Pressburg Yeshiva in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was also growing, but in a fashion quite distinct from its contemporaries. Rabbi Wein examines the curriculum and cultural surroundings that made Pressburg unique, focusing particularly on the most influential Torah giant of the region: the Chasam Sofer.

• Mir, Slobodka, Telshe and more
• the Hapsburgs, better to the Jews than the Czar
• the Emperor Franz Josef - friend and benefactor of the Jews
• the Chasam Sofer - from Frankfurt to Pressburg
• the innovations of Pressburg Yeshiva - secular studies and even speech courses!

To learn about each of the Lithuanian yeshivas in-depth, please listen to "Yeshivas of Eastern Europe."

For the biographies of the Chasam Sofer and his son the K'sav Sofer, see "Fathers, Sons, and Grandsons."

And for the biography of Emperor Franz Joseph, see "Great Non-Jews in Jewish History."