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The yeshiva was established in Novogrudok, Minsk Governorate, Russian Empire in 1896, together with a Kollel for married men, under the direction of Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horwitz, an alumnus of the Kovno Kollel and pupil of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. He was known as the Alter fun Novardok, "the elder of Novardok" in Yiddish language.
Novardok yeshivas were opened in major cities likr Kyiv, Kharkiv, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Zhytomyr, Berdychiv, Tsaritsyn (now Volgograd), Saratov, Plogid, and Chernihiv. Influenced by the Alter, his students also created yeshivas in Kherson, Mohyliv-Podilskyi, Kamieniec-Podolski, Berdichev, Mykolaiv, Bălţi, Odessa, Piotrków Trybunalski and other places.
Students of Novardok participated in deliberately humiliating behaviour, such as wearing old, patched clothing, or going to a shop and asking for a product not sold there, such as screws in a bakery. All Novardok students would share their personal belongings with friends to rid themselves of their desires for worldly possessions.
One pupil related that the purpose of these exercises were not to "put yourself down", as is commonly thought. The training, in fact, promoted the opposite; it gave the students the emotional freedom from the chains of public approval. They discovered that the fear of embarrassment was actually much greater than the reality. This strengthened their confidence to do the right thing, oblivious to what others might think.
With this method, Novardok established in Poland alone no less than seventy yeshivas of varying sizes. Dispatched from the yeshiva base in Białystok, teams would investigate towns and cities and evaluate their suitability for a yeshiva. The extensive Novardok network supplied half of all the students to Eastern Europe's other famous yeshivas.
Some students came to Novardok yeshiva from as far as the Caucasus.
At first, The Alter served as both the rosh yeshiva and mashgiach of the yeshiva, delivering shiurim in Gemara and mussar. In time, though, he appointed others to deliver the Gemara shiurim, while he focused on developing the mussar aspect of the yeshiva.
The Yeshiva would have conscripts demanded from it, but the students would refuse to come. There were stories in the yeshiva about the soldiers threatening students at gunpoint, only to have the student respond that the soldier was powerless before God.
In 1919, when the Yeshiva was fleeing the war and was stationed in Kiev, a typhus outbreak occurred in the Yeshiva. The Alter succumbed to it.
Rabbi Avraham Yoffen survived the Holocaust, came to the United States, and settled in Brooklyn, New York where he re-established the yeshiva. The faculty consisted of Rabbi Yoffen as dean, his son, Rabbi Yaakov Yoffen as a lecturer, and his son-in-law Rabbi Yehuda Leib Nekritz as Mashgiach ruchani.
During the 1960s, Rabbi Avraham Yoffen moved to Jerusalem and established a branch of his yeshiva in Meah Shearim. Under the leadership of the younger Rabbi Yoffen and Rabbi Nekritz, the Brooklyn branch continued to thrive and became renowned as a center for advanced Talmudic studies.
Following Rabbi Avraham Yoffen's death in 1970, leadership of the Jerusalem branch was assumed by his grandson, Rabbi Aaron Yoffen, editor of the Mossad Harav Kook edition of the Ritva's commentary to Yevamot and Nedarim. Yearly, Rabbi Yaakov Jofen would travel to Jerusalem to teach the students of his father's yeshiva.
Following Rabbi Nekritz's death and Rabbi Yaakov Yoffen's death in 2003, the leadership of the Brooklyn-based yeshiva fell to their sons, Rabbi Mordechai Yoffen and Rabbi Tzvi Nekritz. They chose to move the Yeshiva to the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, and bring in Rabbi Yaakov Drillman of Yeshiva Chaim Berlin as a Rosh Yeshiva.
The Jerusalem branch is headed by Rabbi Shmuel and Rabbi Eitan Yoffen, sons of Rabbi Aaron Yoffen. However, the latter is primarily a high level talmudic professor in the Chevron Yeshiva (Knesset Yisrael) of Jerusalem .
Also influenced by the Novardok movement is the Yeshiva of Far Rockaway in Far Rockaway, New York, founded by Rabbi Yechiel Perr, son-in-law of Rabbi Yehuda Leib Nekritz. The yeshiva is named after Rabbi Yoffen's book, Derech Ayson. Rabbi Perr led the yeshiva until he died in May 2024.
Another branch in the footsteps of Novardok is Yeshiva Madreigas HaAdam in Queens, NY, named after the Alter's mussar compendium, headed by Rabbi Yoffen's grandson, Rabbi Moshe Faskowitz.
A significant, additional network of Novardok Yeshivas was founded after World War II in France by Rabbi Gershon Liebman,See which in its heyday, had 40 schools and 6,000 students. Though "Rabenou Guerchon" as he is known in France had founded numerous yeshivos before the war, and had even managed to keep one going during the war, the Beth Yosef-France network found its origins within the newly liberated camp of Bergen-Belsen. Relocating to various DP camps, and then through several French cities, the yeshiva became a mainstay of the French Jewish community until today.
Reb Gershon would travel to Morocco to recruit Jewish students, whose only other option for Jewish education were the irreligious Alliance Israélite Universelle schools.
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