Rabbi Shimon Sholom Kalish, the Amshinover Rebbe (1883-1954), was the son of Rabbi Menachem Kalish, the second Rebbe of Amshinov, and a descendant of Rabbi Yitzchak of Vorka. When his father died in 1918, most of the Chassidim followed his elder brother, Rabbi Yosef; Rabbi Shimon Sholom set up his court in Otwock near Warsaw, where his love for his followers drew many. A scholar and kabbalist, he prayed late as the Amshinover Rebbes did, saying that a Jew needs two watches: one that shows it is already late, and one that shows it is not yet too late.

At the outbreak of the Second World War he fled with his son and nephew to Vilna and Kovno, and then on the Trans-Siberian railway to Japan and Shanghai. He was a driving force behind the exodus of thousands of students of the Mir, Kletsk, Radin and Novardok yeshivot along this route. When the Nazis pressed the Japanese to hand over Shanghai's Jews, he was summoned by the authorities; asked why the Nazis hated the Jews, he is said to have answered: "Because we are Asians, like you." The Japanese did not comply, and the refugees' conditions improved.

After the war he settled in Williamsburg in the United States and began building a yeshiva in Jerusalem's Bayit Vegan neighbourhood, but fell ill and died on 19 Av 5714 (1954) before he could move to the Land of Israel. His coffin was brought to Tiberias, where he rests in the old cemetery among the disciples of the Baal Shem Tov. His teachings are collected in Mashmia Shalom.