Etz Chaim Yeshiva was founded in 1886 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City.[1] It was founded as a cheder-style elementary school [2] and merged with the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary in 1915 to form the Rabbinical College of America, upon which the elementary grades of Etz Chaim were discontinued, leaving only the high school, the predecessor of today's Masha Stern Talmudical Academy. The Rabbinical College of America developed into Yeshiva College and later Yeshiva University.