Several thousand people participated this afternoon (Tuesday) in the funeral procession of Rosh Yeshivas Ponevezh and Lithuanian community leader Rabbi Gershon Edelstein who died this morning at the age of 100.

The funeral procession began with the recitation of Tehilim and other liturgical prayers by the son of the late rabbi at the Ponevezh Yeshiva hall and ended at the Ponevezh cemetery in Bnei Brak.

The funeral procession was secured by thousands of policemen after a special operation for a mass funeral procession was announced by the Tel Aviv district. When the body was taken out of the Yeshiva hall, people crowded together to reach the bed so hard that they endangered one another, and a police officer had to call for the public to back away from the bed and refrain from climbing on roofs and fences.

The president of the Ponevezh Yeshiva, Rabbi Eliezer Kahaneman, eulogized at the funeral: "We are now about to say goodbye to our teacher and rabbi, not only me, all the people of Israel are saying goodbye, especially the Yeshiva. There has not been a single day since the Yeshiva opened that Rabbi Gershon was not there, either as a student or as a teacher. His life was pure and loyal to the Yeshiva and Talmud Torah, until the very last moment."... Read More: Arutz-7