ots@ohrtorahstone.org.il

l. to .r: Yinon Ahiman,OTS director general, Shimon Adler, head of the Ministry of Education’s Division of Religious Education, and Neveh Channah Principal Rabbi Avishai Milner

At a June 15 awards ceremony at Bar-Ilan University, the Neveh Channah High School for Girls was presented with the 2008 Education Prize for Religious Schools, the highest honor in the religious education sector. The school was one of three religious high schools across Israel to receive the award.
The prize was awarded following a lengthy process that culminated with an on-site visit to Neveh Channah by an official Prize Committee delegation. “The delegation members were extremely impressed with the range of projects we showed them in the academic and social realms, especially the distinctive science and religious studies curriculum that we have developed,” says principal Rabbi Avishai Milner. “But I’m sure that what clinched their decision was the hours they spent in discussion with our students. These young women are the leadership of tomorrow – with a love of Torah and an academic excellence that will place them in the forefront of Israeli life. This is Neveh Channah’s greatest prize of all.”

Learning to Lead at Neveh Shmuel

Tenth graders at the Neveh Shmuel Yeshiva High School for Boys are gaining valuable skills for the future through the school’s Leadership Project, a far-reaching program that raises awareness to the issue of leadership and cultivates their potential. Encompassing both theoretical studies and practical application, the program “grew out of our extreme concern at the leadership crisis facing the Jewish people and the Israeli nation,” explains principal Chezi Zeharia.

Throughout the year, students analyze different models and explore dilemmas in leadership, from Biblical times to the present. They participate in seminars in planning, decision-making, rhetoric and mediation and meet with leaders in the realms of Torah, the military, politics, diplomacy, economics, society, education and more. With 95% of the participants serving as madrichim – youth counselors – within the community, the students have ongoing opportunity to put their studies into practical use.

“The leadership program is educating us for our lives after graduation,” notes student Oren Lubotsky. “We’ve met with very impressive people from our own religious circles, as well as from other walks of life, who are making a difference in the places they’re needed most. They’ve shown us that we can integrate our Jewish values into every situation, and confront all situations with dignity. I’ve already used much of what I’ve learned there in my work as a madrich in Bnei Akiva in the Absorption Center in Mevaseret Zion.”

A Spiritual Sanctuary at the Jennie Sapirstein High School for Girls

A new beit midrash at the Jennie Sapirstein Junior High and High School for Girls has become an academic and spiritual focal point for students, staff and graduates alike. Dedicated in memory of Dr. Tonya Soloveitchik, wife of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the beit midrash is located in one of the school’s busiest spots, yet is a tranquil oasis with comfortable chairs and tables and a library.

The multi-purpose beit midrash serves as a classroom for Jewish Philosophy courses and high-level Talmud study within the school’s Beit Midrash Program, whose students seek more concentrated Jewish studies and a deeper spiritual experience than a regular classroom. "The atmosphere and studies in the beit midrash are so intensive that we feel like we’re in a yeshiva," adds 11th grader Odeya Tal-Or. "It is also the place we go when we need to come together – like when the brother of one of our classmates was killed in a car accident.”

In the coming school year, the beit midrash will also house a new learning program for the school’s graduates who have completed their sherut leumi national service, as well as a weekly beit midrash program for teachers.

An OTS Winner

President Shimon Peres looks on as Amir Sasson receives his prize.

 A New Home for the Beit Midrash High School

After 13 years in temporary quarters, the Beit Midrash High School for Boys is moving this summer to its new home in the Givat Hate’ena neighborhood of Efrat. The large premises feature a spacious library, well-equipped special education resource center, laboratories, a large, computerized teachers’ lounge, and sports facilities – none of which existed at the old location. “The move has prompted us to declare the upcoming school year as ’The Year of Excellence,’” says Rabbi Shlomo Vilk, principal of the high school. “Staff and students will work together toward raising the academic level and improving student performance in school and in the bagrut national matriculation exams.”

Tenth granders on a fieldtrip to to the Negev, in memory of their beloved teacher Rabbi Aviad Ronen, who died tragically at the age of 31

Encompassing 300 students from seventh through 12th grades, the high school is the largest in the entire Gush Etzion area. Students with learning difficulties receive ongoing assistance from the school’s special education instructors, art therapist, drama therapist, guidance counselors and psychologists. “On the whole, our students are serious and enthusiastic about their academic and religious studies and continually score above the national average on standardized exams,” Rabbi Vilk continues. “The new building will give a tremendous boost to their already-strong spirit.”

Dramatic Achievement at Shavei Rachel

Packed audiences were treated to a highly professional production of dramatic monologues by 11th grade drama students from the Shavei Rachel High School for Girls, under the auspices of OTS’s Ann Belsky Moranis School of Arts. The performance, in conjunction with matriculation requirements, featured short pieces ranging from translations of such classics as Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie and Nikolai Gogol ‘s The Marriage to contemporary pieces like Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers and recent Israeli works.

Ayala Freedman

In an unprecedented development, the Ministry of Education allowed students to submit original monologue creations and, impressively, the only two entries accepted throughout the entire country were those of two Shavei Rachel students. One dealt with a young woman whose fiancé was killed in action just days before their planned wedding; the other was the deeply personal account of a 17-year-old’s journey “back home” several years after she had abandoned religion.

To highlight the plight of agunot and explore the role of women in Orthodox Judaism, Ayala Freedman performed a monologue from “Habetula MiLudmir,” a play about the 19th century “Maiden of Ludmir” who declined marriage, opting to become a Torah scholar instead. Ayala’s character, a desperate woman whose husband had been forcibly pressed into the Russian army on the very night of their wedding 10 years before, has been wandering from rabbi to rabbi seeking release; finally, she approaches the Maiden of Ludmir, begging her for a get because, “You are a woman, you understand women...”

< Back