Prominent scholars included Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor (the "Kovner Rav"; officiated 1864-96), Abraham Mapu, one of the first modern Hebrew writers, and Israel Isidor Elyashev, known as the "Ba'al Makhshoves," the first Yiddish literary critic.

The yeshivot of Slobodka, particularly the Or HaChaim yeshivah founded by Tzvi Levitan around 1863 (also known as Yeshivas R' Hirschel), attracted students from other countries.

[1] Shortly after World War I began in 1914, some members of the yeshiva, including Finkel, Epstein, and the mashgiach ruchani Ber Hirsch Heller, fled Slabodka for Minsk, which was farther from the front lines.

The Alter of Slabodka sent Avraham Grodzinski and Yechezkel Sarna to Palestine to find a suitable location for the yeshiva, and they chose Hebron.

In Lithuania, Finkel's son-in-law Yitzchak Isaac Sher became rosh yeshiva, with Ber Hirsch Heller and Grodzinski serving as mashgiachs.

Following the 1929 Hebron massacre, which resulted in the murder of twenty-four students, the yeshiva was re-established in the Geula neighbourhood of Jerusalem.