Summer Beit Midrash
The Center for Modern Torah Leadership awards 2012 Summer Beit Midrash Fellowships and continues to expand its programming.
2012 SBM will focus on the theme “Psak, Ethics, and Industrial Kashrut: The Case of Bishul Nokhri”. The CMTL is offering a second year of its highly successful program for middle and high school students to study Midrash.
The Center for Modern Torah Leadership, the intellectual catalyst of Modern Orthodoxy, is proud to introduce the Fellows for its 2012 Summer Beit Midrash. Fellows include men and women from leading universities, yeshivot, and seminaries with advanced textual skills and a passionate commitment to learning Torah in an environment that welcomes the moral challenges of modernity as spiritual opportunities and sees recognition of each human beings as a Divine Image as a fundamental assumption and telos of Torah study.
The Summer Beit Midrash is an intense and exhilarating learning program that allows Fellows to pursue compelling questions with intellectual rigor and ethical integrity in the framework of a warm and challenging Orthodox community, and to experience themselves as active contributors to the halakhic conversation. This year's seminar, our sixteenth, will center on the theme “Psak, Ethics, and Industrial Kashrut: The Case of Bishul Nokhri". It will run from June 25 through August 3, 2012, at the Young Israel of Sharon, 100 Ames Street, Sharon, Massachusetts.
SBM is headed by CMTL Dean Rabbi Aryeh Klapper, with an array of distinguished guest lecturers. SBM Fellows will lead a variety of public learning opportunities during the seminar, including one-on-one study, thematic text-study groups, and formal classes. For more information about the summer, please contact Anne Sendor at moderntorahleadership@gmail.com.
Yeshivat Hakayitz returns this summer with its fun and challenging Torah study program for high school and middle school students from throughout Greater Boston. Along with Mrs. Deborah Klapper, director of the program, SBM Fellows will also be teaching. The dates for this summer's program are June 25--July 27, with five separate weeklong sessions – sign up for one or for all! For more information about curriculum, tuition, and transportation, contact Mrs. Klapper at DevorahRK@AOL.COM
For general information about CMTL and its programs, as well as for many terrific articles and audio and video classes, please see www.torahleadership.org.
Meira Altabet, from Sharon, spent two years learning Torah in Israel, studying at Midreshet Harova in Jerusalem and then at Migdal Oz in the Gush. She is currently studying at Stern College in New York. Recently, she has been exploring the evolving role of women in the Jewish community, and this past semester, participated in a fellowship program at Yeshivat Mechon Hadar. When she is not studying Torah or doing homework, Meira enjoys practicing karate at the Society for Martial Arts Instruction.
Stephen Belsky is a graduate of the Pardes Educators Program and of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, as well as a fan of speculative fiction, angry music, and the poetic prophetic rebukes of our Nevi'im. He grew up in the seaside town of Brooklyn, NY, but has spent the last few years serving as a Jewish day school teacher in Michigan. Stephen is looking forward to being a student again for the summer, learning with Rabbi Klapper, with the other SBM fellows, and with the Sharon community.
Aminadav Grossman, a rising junior in Columbia College, is majoring in History, in addition to a concentration in Jewish Studies. He hails from Riverdale, NY, but is very excited to return to the Boston area where he lived over ten years ago. He is passionate about creating a vibrant beit midrash atmosphere and learning community in the Columbia/ Barnard Hillel where he coordinates weekly shiurim, guest lectures, and other Torah initiatives. He is looking forward to experiencing a new beit midrash and Jewish community full of interesting people and new perspectives.
Pnina Grossman is a Sharon, MA resident and Maimonides alumna. She is currently a freshman at Cooper Union, where she is studying engineering. Before Cooper Union, Pnina spent two years learning in Israel at Migdal Oz. She is looking forward to spending this summer getting back into some serious learning.
Gabrielle Hiller, from Fair Lawn, NJ, attended Ma'ayanot Yeshiva HS and Midreshet Lindenbaum and has just completed her second year at Stern College. She is majoring in Jewish Education and (probably) minoring in History, hoping one day to teach high school Tanakh and Gemara. She is excited to spend the summer honing her textual skills and gaining a deeper understanding of the halakhic process, and looks forward to learning from everyone in the program and getting involved with the Sharon community.
Aviva Novick is from Highland Park, NJ. She just completed her second year at NYU where she is an anthropology major and politics minor. Aviva attended Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School and spent a year studying at Nishmat. She enjoys being as involved as possible in the Jewish community at NYU. Aviva is very excited to join Summer Beit Midrash and is looking forward to what she knows will be a powerful learning experience.
Sarah Robinson, from Newton, spent Shana Alef in Midreshet HaRova and Shana Bet in Migdal Oz. At Maimonides High School, Sarah was a madricha, then Co-Director of her local branch of Bnei Akiva. Sarah was also a Tikvah Israel Fellow. In her free time, Sarah enjoys cooking and playing Bananagrams with her twin sister. Sarah will continue her studies in Stern College for Women in the fall.
Elliot Salinger, of Framingham, MA, is a graduate of Maimonides School who will be studying at Yeshivat Har Etzion next year before attending Princeton University. Elliot's main interests are philosophy, law, and history. He is particularly fascinated with traditional halakhah’s encounter with academic Judaic studies. Elliot is excited to learn from the faculty and participants of the Summer Beit Midrash.
Eli Shaubi is an incoming senior at Cornell University, majoring in Near Eastern Studies and Philosophy. He's been studying Arabic, and enjoys learning Judeo-Arabic texts in their original language. He hopes to write his thesis this upcoming year on the intersection of law and mysticism in the works of Bahya ibn Paquda and Avraham ben HaRambam. He loves Andalusian Jewry and loves to share with people what the Sefardic tradition is all about. He studied in Yeshivat Eretz Hatzvi for two years after high school, and plans on making aliyah at the end of his senior year.
Joshua Skootsky hails from San Francisco, California. Having completed two years of study at Yeshivat Eretz HaTzvi, he is continuing his higher education at Yeshiva University this upcoming fall as a Chemistry major. As a student at the Jewish Community High School of the Bay, he designed, built, and remotely controlled a 120-pound combat robot that competed in Battlebots 2009. He hopes to draw on many forms of knowledge and find new ways of approaching issues.
Sarah Steinberg was born and raised in Highland Park, NJ. She attended Stern College, where she majored in mathematics and then completed the Graduate Program in Advanced Talmudic Studies. Sarah is currently debating between pursuing a career in education or in applied math. She is thrilled to be taking part in SBM and looking forward to learning from her teachers and classmates in the program.
Jason Strauss, a native of Lawrence, NY, is an alumnus of Yeshivat Shaalvim and Columbia University, where he received a Bachelors of Science degree in Engineering and Economics. He is a rabbinical student at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and will be pursuing a Masters degree in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in the fall. He has taught and written Torah in a number of different venues, including a weekly shiur he gave at the Columbia/Barnard Hillel and articles in YU’s Beis Yitzchak. Jason is thrilled to participate in SBM and further enhance and hone his learning skills while sharing a community with such a great cohort of budding scholars!
Jonathan Ziring, originally of Staten Island, NY is returning for a fourth year. By this point, Sharon has become a second home. Along with his wife Ora, he is excited to learn with and from everyone, as he has for the last three years. He is a Semikha Students at RIETS, a Master candidate at Bernard Revel Graduate School, and this coming year will be a Tikva Fellow.
Ora Ziring is just finishing her second year in the Graduate Program of Advanced Talmudic Study. She has spent previous summers working in the Beit Midrash Program in Moshava Indian Orchard. She has given shiurim in Gemara and Halacha in the NYU Hillel and Stern College. She is excited to come back to Sharon for her second year in the Summer Beit Midrash Program with her husband Jonathan.
Chana Zuckier is a recent graduate of Stern College, where she received her BA in Physics and Jewish Studies while also studying Talmud in Stern's Masters Program in Biblical and Talmudic Interpretation. During her time at Stern, she was a writer for and editor-in-chief of Kol Hamevaser, Yeshiva University’s undergraduate Jewish thought magazine. Her interests include comparative law, current events and camping. She is looking forward to spending her summer in SBM with her husband, Shlomo Zuckier, learning with and from R. Klapper, the SBM fellows and the Sharon community.
Shlomo Zuckier is a Teaneck native, and has been learning in Gush and YU for the last 8 years. He also received a BA in Philosophy and Jewish Studies at YC, and a MA in Bible at Revel. His travels have included editorship of Kol Hamevaser, Tikvah and Wexner Fellowships, a Rabbinic Internship at Lincoln Square Synagogue, and teaching on college campuses. He is interested in studying Halakhah as a legal system and he looks forward to spending his summer learning with R. Klapper, the entire SBM, and especially his wife Chana.
For more information, or to support CMTL, see http://www.torahleadership.org/ or contact Anne Sendor at moderntorahleadership@gmail.com.
