Founded in 1968 by Rabbi Mordechai Elefant, the yeshiva has several branches in Israel and the United States, and spawned several educational programs for Diaspora Jews.

Yeshivas Itri was founded in 1968 by Rabbi Mordechai Elefant, an American-born educator who was a close student of Rabbis Aharon Kotler, Aryeh Leib Malin and Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik.

The yeshiva met for several years in the Orient House hotel in East Jerusalem.

Rabbi Elefant moved it to the premises of an old British Mandate hospital in the southeast of the city, near the Arab village of Beit Safafa, in the 1970s.

[3] The yeshiva received funding from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee,[3] government sources, and private donations.