Elchonon Bunim Wasserman (Hebrew: אלחנן בונים וסרמן; Lithuanian: Elchononas Vasermanas; 1874[1] – 6 July 1941) was a prominent rabbi and rosh yeshiva (dean) in prewar Europe.

He was one of the closest students of Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (the Chofetz Chaim) and a noted Talmid Chacham.

Elchonon Bunim Wasserman[2][3] was born in Biržai (Birz) in present-day Lithuania to Naftali Beinish, a shopkeeper and Sheina Rakhel.

When Wasserman returned home during vacation, he participated in classes given by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook, who was appointed rabbi of Bauska in 1895.

"[4] He left Telz and traveled to Brest-Litovsk (Brisk) in present-day Belarus, where he learned under Rav Soloveitchik for two years, thereafter considering him his primary rebbe (teacher and mentor).

He did however decide to teach, and together with R' Yoel Baranchik, he started a mesivta (high school) in Mstislavl (known to Jews as Amtchislav) in 1903 and earned himself a reputation as an outstanding teacher.

Prior to 1907, Reb Wasserman heard that another local rabbi wanted to head the mesivta in Amtshilov and he left to avoid an argument, returning to learn in his father-in-law's house.

[4] In 1910, with the encouragement of Rabbi Yisroel Meir Kagan, the Chofetz Chaim, Wasserman was appointed rosh yeshiva of the mesivta in Brest-Litovsk, leading its expansion until it was disbanded in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I.

[4] When the Eastern Front reached Radin, however, the yeshiva there was closed, and Rav Wasserman fled to Russia with the Chofetz Chaim.

In 1939, just before the Nazi invasion, he advised a student against accepting a visa to the United States if it meant studying at Yeshiva University and what is now the Hebrew Theological College, due to what he perceived as a spiritually dangerous atmosphere in these two institutions.

[15] Even during the Holocaust, Reb Wasserman discouraged emigration to the United States or British-Mandate Palestine, viewing them as places of spiritual danger.

"[16] Reb Wasserman viewed the two ascendant political movements of his time, nationalism and socialism, as "two forms of idolatry that had poisoned the hearts and minds of Jewish youth", and saw Nazism as an amalgam of both.

He viewed the rise of the Nazi Party as a tool of God to exact punishment on the Jewish people for their pursuit of these foreign belief systems.