Shimon Yehuda Shkop was Rosh Yeshiva (dean) of the Yeshiva of Telshe, and later of Yeshiva Shaar HaTorah of Grodno. Having innovated a style of Torah study, applying both to Halacha and to Talmud, he was widely regarded as a major Talmid Chacham.

Yechezkel Sarna (1890–1969) was a disciple of Nosson Tzvi Finkel,, spiritual mentor of the Slabodka yeshiva. He was sent by Finkel to move the yeshiva from Europe to Hebron in 1925, and following the 1929 Hebron massacre, to Jerusalem. In 1934, he assumed the position of rosh yeshiva. Over the years, he produced thousands of students, many of whom became prominent roshei yeshiva and rabbis in Israel and abroad.