Tag: yeshiva

A watershed moment took place in Brooklyn last month on primary night. Those who care about private school education should sit up and take notice.

It’s human nature to hide our heads in the sand. That may be because we are mostly optimistic. We believe everything will be all right even when we know we are taking a chance.

A comment by Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz the other day set us thinking about an element in the draft debate that could only manifest itself in an Israeli context.

Books. Some people love them; others claim they can do without them. For Zalman Alpert, they are essentially his life. For the past 35 years, Alpert has served as a reference librarian at Yeshiva University (YU). Educated at Columbia University’s School of Library Services and New York University’s School of Education, where he attained a master’s degree in Modern Jewish History, Alpert is one of those individuals who knows a little (sometimes a lot) about everything. Over the years, he has contributed articles to such works as Encyclopedia of Hasidim; Jewish American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia; Encyclopedia of Jewish American Popular Culture; Midstream; and The Jewish Press.

“Let me be honest with you,” the rosh yeshiva began. It was not a good sign. I was sitting for a farher, an entrance interview, with the rosh yeshiva of a well-known yeshiva in Jerusalem, and it was about to go very badly. I was, to be fair, a very unusual applicant. I had just graduated from law school. My classmates and friends were headed off to prestigious clerkships or to seek their fortunes. I had other plans. My secular learning had now outpaced my Torah learning, and it was time, I believed, to catch up.

“Fourteen hours a day in yeshiva but [a student] doesn’t learn a single word of English, math, history, science, geography, music art, nothing, nothing, nothing.”

During his weekly talk, the Ashlag Rebbe, Rabbi Simcha Avraham Halevy, challenged politicians who promote the notion of an equal burden, describing them as imbeciles. He proposed a solution to the inequality: "Let every secular boy be forced to bear the burden of defending the homeland of Israel and fulfill his national duty to study Torah and keep the mitzvot." He also said, "The nation of Israel did not survive our brutal history by the deterrence of the IDF, nor by the might of the State of Israel, but by the merit of the study of Torah."

British police reported that the shots fired in front of Manchester’s Yeshivat Shaarei Torah around 2 AM last night were aimed at the yeshiva and did not happen by accident. The yeshiva is located in the mostly Jewish neighborhood of Broughton Park.

When I recently wished a friend “Mazal Tov” on his daughter’s engagement, I broached the issue of prenuptial agreements in accordance with Jewish law. My friend, a rosh yeshiva, turned to me and said, “Of course they’re signing one. People who don’t sign halachic prenuptial agreements are stupid.”

From elected officials to people in the street, from the highly educated secular upper class to yeshiva students to the working poor, numerous Israelis seem to share a lexicon and intellectual framework which denigrates and dehumanizes Africans, belittles their suffering, and trivialized their plight.

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The Plesner Committee, tasked with crafting an alternative to the Tal Law for haredi service in Israel, is reportedly drafting a proposal which would defer the enlistment of haredi men till age 22, offer financial incentives to yeshivot that have younger enlistment rates, and begin to levy economic sanctions on haredim who don't enlist by age 23.

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The forthcoming debate over an updated Tal Law – the parameters for service by haredim in the Israel Defense Forces – is liable to become heated and nasty. Mutual accusations will be hurled, with one group asserting that mandatory military service is part of an ill-disguised war against Torah and the other side seeking an equal sharing of the defense burdens that fall on most other Israelis.

On the issue of ultra-Orthodox military service, 41% of those surveyed said they would be moderately or very interested in joining the Haredi IDF program, while 59% said they had either little or no interest. Still, the percentage of interest is substantially higher than the current annual rate of Haredi enlistment in the IDF.

An Israeli–Zionist success story: the story of two Ethiopian youths who immigrated to Israel from their village in 2007 and evolved into top notch high school students and youth group leaders.

While things might have seemed very strange in this foreign college environment, especially because I was tossed in without any roadmap to help me navigate and understand the kinds of things I was seeing all around me, there was one area I was not worried about: academics. Northeastern Illinois has a rather derogatory nickname, “Northeasy," and it does not have a very good academic reputation. I didn’t think my classes would be very hard at all.

Question: I have heard that some halachic authorities disapprove of placing a silver atarah on a talit. Is this true?

It was Moishele, and Itche, and me. We did everything together. We even made our own language, which only we understood. In shul they jokingly called us “the troika,” after the three bishops whose authority extended across Poland.

Although I was very aware that who I was and how I acted would seem out of place to the diverse student population at NEIU, I never really thought about how unusual their cultures would be for me.

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On Tuesday afternoon, 26 Adar, March 20, 5772, Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, zt”l, returned his soul to the Creator. He was the rosh yeshiva of Torah Ore in Jerusalem, one of the leading rabbonim in Kiryat Mattersdorf, and a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Israel. The entire yeshiva world deeply mourns his passing.

The Jewish Press joins Klal Yisrael in mourning the loss of Rav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, a world renowned Talmudist and posek, longtime rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Torah Ore in Jerusalem, and one of the foremost figures in the yeshiva world for three quarters of a century.

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Purim is the one Yom Tov all Jews can celebrate. Special knowledge is not required and the demands of its observance are easy enough.

More Commentary On Bais Yaakov’s High School Education

Do older Jews have a rebbe?

There certainly are many reasons to look forward to Purim. It is a time of feasting, joy, and merriment. We celebrate an important victory over our enemies, which was a precedent for many other such victories over the course of our history. We read one of the most moving stories in our entire tradition, and we have good fun while we’re doing it.

Many of the participants in an emergency conference last night were adamant on the need to “give up our lives” over the preservation of Torah study, in face of a growing public push for Haredi military service. In the Israeli marketplace of ideas, two views competed this morning: "Don't push them too fast, or you'll get nothing but conflict" – versus "It's time for everybody to carry their fair share of the load." Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman was on the money when he accused retired Supreme Court President Beinisch of committing a hit-and-run…

Dear Dr. Yael: As a reader of all of your columns on hakaras hatov, here are my feelings as a child with loving parents.