[5] Gordon added his son-in-law, Yosef Leib Bloch, to the faculty, and in 1885, he hired Shimon Shkop.

Ben Zion Kranitz was hired for a new faculty position: mussar mashgiach (teacher of ethics).

In 1897 Gordon hired Leib Chasman, who instituted a very strict mussar regime in the yeshiva which many students opposed.

Parallel to an easier version of the yeshiva curriculum, the mechina also featured secular studies, another innovation at the time.

In 1924 the Lithuanian government announced its decision to accredit only those rabbinical colleges that possessed a secular studies department.

In 1925 The Yavneh School for the Training of Teachers reopened in Telz under the auspices of The Rabbinical College of Telshe.

For many years the Jewish community in Lithuania had lacked a structured educational system for teenage girls.

In June 1940, the Russians seized control of the country and quickly transformed it into a "soviet socialist republic."

As part of this transformation, private Jewish organizations and schools were disbanded and the yeshiva was closed.

The learning was done in groups of 20-25 students, studying in various batai medrashim ("small synagogues") led by the rosh yeshivas.

During the early years of World War II, Elya Meir Bloch and Chaim Mordechai Katz were in the United States on a fund-raising mission.