He received private education of Talmud and at the age of 14 moved out of home to Selets in order to study with Yeruham Perlman — who later became noted rabbi of Minsk.

In 1909 he received a substantial amount of money from a Moscow Jew, Liba Miriam Gavronskii, daughter of Kalonymus Wissotzky - tea magnate, who wanted to commemorate her husband by opening religious school for promising male students.

In 1910 at the rabbinical congress in Saint Petersburg he supported a resolution which demanded rabbis in Russian empire to know the local language of the country.

In 1917, at the meeting of Masoret ve-Herut (Orthodox leaders), he proposed a resolution to endorse redistribution of land to peasants.

After the end of World War I, in 1919, he returned to Ponevezh, but due to Bolsheviks ruling the town, he was unable to teach nor to re-establish his yeshiva.

The outbreak of World War II caught Kahaneman during his trip to British Mandate Palestine, where he decided to stay.

The school building was incorporated into the part of town that was turned into a ghetto, and yeshiva students were murdered only a few days after the Nazi occupation started.