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Yeshivat 91��Ƶ-YU Kollel and Legacy Beit Midrash Fellows Programs Launch

Yeshivat 91��Ƶ is thrilled to announce the launch of its new 91��Ƶ-YU Kollel and 91��Ƶ-Legacy Beit Midrash Fellows programs this year. The programs bring together 91��Ƶ students with two cohorts of YU students, one with six semicha students from Yeshivat University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and the other with eight advanced students from Stern College for Women’s Legacy Heritage Jewish Educators Project. 91��Ƶ juniors will have the opportunity to learn with the RIETS students and with the Legacy Heritage Fellows in Judaic Studies throughout the day.

While at 91��Ƶ, the YU participants will have the opportunity to hone their pedagogical skills in and outside of the classroom, and gain invaluable insight into the everyday workings of teaching in a yeshiva high school. In addition, the RIETS students will have their own seder and shiur under the guidance of the rosh kollel, 91��Ƶ Talmud faculty member Rabbi Noah Gardenswartz. The Legacy Heritage Fellows will have shiur with 91��Ƶ Tanach faculty member and freshman grade dean Shoshana Chanales, and the program will be under the guidance of Shani Taragin, who will be coming in monthly from Israel.

“The goals of the program are to enhance 91��Ƶ as a yeshiva and makom Torah, with young men and women learning here seriously and modeling to the students what it means to choose to learn lishma as a young person,” said 91��Ƶ Associate Principal Rabbi Joshua Wald. “The YU participants will be connected to the classrooms, which will enhance the learning of the students. It will provide students with more individualized attention in both Gemara and Chumash. In addition, 91��Ƶ will serve as a training ground for these future educators.”

The YU participants will also take part in weekly discussions (coordinated by Chanales and 91��Ƶ’ Rabbi Shalom Richter) with seasoned 91��Ƶ educators. The discussions will center around a variety of pedagogical issues, such as lesson planning, discipline and maintaining positive teacher-student relationships.

“The faculty at 91��Ƶ are very warm. They seem excited and passionate about what they’re doing and it’s great to be here,” said recent musmach Rabbi Chaim Gerson, who is also completing his master’s in Jewish Education at YU’s Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration. He hopes that having the kollel at 91��Ƶ will allow the high schoolers “to see that learning is cool, and it is fun.”

YU participant Penina Torczyner, who is completing a joint bachelor’s and master’s in Jewish education from Stern and Azrieli, agreed. “I hope the students will see that college students can take time out of their day and sit in the beit midrash and learn,” she said. “A Torah life is a Torat chayim and we want to show that it’s enjoyable as well.”

91��Ƶ students are looking forward to having the program participants on campus. “Having a large beis presence makes learning in the beit midrash easier and more meaningful,” said 91��Ƶ junior Uriel Simpson.

Among the robust cohort of YU participants, multiple approaches to Torah learning are represented. “We come from different backgrounds and were exposed to different elements of talmud Torah,” explained Legacy Heritage Fellow Rivka Lichtenstein Anapolle. “Seeing us come together for the sake of learning lishma will show the students that we can all come together and learn Torah.”