Meir Simcha of Dvinsk branches were established in Toronto and Montreal in Canada, and in Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. Worldwide, branches, all bearing the name "Ohr Somayach", are Ohr Somayach, South Africa, London in the United Kingdom, Kiev in the Ukraine, and Sydney in Australia. Meir Simcha of Dvinsk Meir Simcha of Dvinsk (1843–1926) was a rabbi and prominent leader of Orthodox Judaism in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century. He was a kohen, and is therefore often referred to as "Meir Simcha ha-Kohen" ("Meir Simcha the Kohen"). He is known for his writings on Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, which he titled "Ohr
Simcha Zorin battle with a retreating German unit; seven of his men were killed. In 1971, some 25 years after the war, Simcha Zorin emigrated to Israel. Simcha Zorin Shalom (Simcha) Zorin (1902–1974) was a Jewish Soviet partisan commander in Minsk. Many Jewish partisans in Belorussia had their own units that operated as part of the general Soviet partisan movement and the overall Jewish resistance movement fighting the Nazis in occupied Europe, although some of these Jewish units lost their Jewish character over time. The Zorin unit, led by Simcha-Shalom Zorin, included 800 Jews. The Germans invaded Minsk in late June 1941