Eliezer Gordon

Eliezer Gordon
Born	1841 Chernyany, Belarus
Died	1910 London, United Kingdom

Eliezer Gordon (1841–1910) also known as Reb Laizer Telzer, served as the rabbi and rosh yeshiva of Telz, Lithuania.

Rabbi Gordon was born in 1841 in the village of Chernyany (or Čarniany), Belarus, near Vilna. His father, Avrohom Shmuel Gordon, was a student of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin. As a youngster, he studied in the Zaretza Yeshiva in Vilna. From there, he transferred to the Yeshiva of Rabbi Yisroel Salanter at the Kovno kollel yeshiva in Kovno. Among the yeshiva's outstanding students at the time were Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer, Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Rabbi Naftali Amsterdam, Rabbi Yerucham Perlman and Rabbi Jacob Joseph.

Rabbi Salanter realized that Rabbi Gordon had great potential and appointed him as a maggid shiur in the yeshiva at a young age. After his father-in-law's death, Rabbi Gordon succeeded the latter as Rabbi of Kovno — but he only stayed for three months. On Tuesday, 24 March (6th Nissan) 1874, Rabbi Gordon took over the position of Chief Rabbi at Kelm, where he remained for nine years and founded a Yeshiva. From there, he headed to Slabodka, where he served as Rabbi for about six months. He finally relocated to Telz in 1884, to serve as Rabbi.

In 1875, Rabbis Meir Atlas, Zvi Yaakov Oppenheim and Shlomo Zalman Abel had founded the Telz Yeshiva. As Rabbi of the town, Rabbi Gordon was also appointed head of the fledgling institution. He instituted numerous innovative ideas in the yeshiva which have since become accepted as standard practice in many contemporary yeshivas.

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