Today, on the 1st of Nissan, marks the fifteenth Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Eliyahu Svei, who was niftar in 2009. Also known as Rav Elya Svei, he was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, where his father, Shmuel Leib Svei, served as a Rov. At the age of nine, he journeyed to the United States to join his father, who was fundraising there.

In the U.S., he attended Yeshiva Torah Vodaas. Rav Elya was a talmud of Rav Aharon Kotler and a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah. He co-founded Sinai Academy in Brooklyn, with the aim of educating the children of non-observant Russian Jewish immigrants.