|
 |
|
|
OTS Newsletter - Spring 2004
Twenty Years Ago, OTS Opened a Door for Jewish Women…
The Time Has Come to Finish Building the Home
In 1985, there were 17 students enrolled in Midreshet
Lindenbaum. Today, OTS programs for women have expanded even beyond the
original dream: 225 women currently live in the Neveh Penina building, there
are at least two applicants for every available space, and the bustling beit
midrash is bursting at the seams.
As part of its 20th Anniversary celebrations, OTS has launched a $20
million capital and endowment campaign to refurbish and expand Neveh Penina
and create a vibrant Women’s Torah study center worthy of housing and
nurturing Midreshet Lindenbaum’s pioneering students. At the
groundbreaking ceremony, Mr. Ted Reitman of England was joined by friends,
relatives and OTS leadership in laying the cornerstone of the new facility,
which will accommodate the Henya Hermine Reitman Beit Midrash and the Monica
Dennis Goldberg School for Women Advocates. Mrs. Maria Finkle of the United
States was also honored at the event, where the naming of The Maria and Joel
Finkle Overseas Program for Women was formally announced.
|
Mr. Ted Reitman (right)
watches with pride as his grandson, Jojo, participates in laying the
cornerstone of the Henya Hermine Reitman Beit Midrash
|
|
Guests Renata Knobil (left) of London and Pnina
Herzog (right)
|
|
|
|
Drs. Monique and Mordechai Katz from
the USA
|
|
Chairman of the OTS Israeli Board of
Directors, Dr.
Roy Stern adds to the cornerstone as OTS Director General Yinon
Ahiman (left) looks on
|
|
|
|
|
|
London’s Conrad Morris (left)
catches up with Maria Finkle and Rabbi
Emanuel Rackman
|
|
Guest of Honor Maria Finkle poses with Rabbi
Riskin
|
| |
|
|
|
Friends of OTS from the beginning: Belda
and Marcel Lindenbaum of the USA
|
|
“There was something fitting about
inaugurating the construction of a permanent home for Midreshet
Lindenbaum in the school’s sukkah - a temporary dwelling,”
said OTS Director General Yinon Ahiman.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mr. Henry Knobil of London salutes his dear friends, Mrs.
Maria Finkle and Mr. Ted Reitman
|
|
Guest of Honor Mr. Ted Reitman expresses
his satisfaction that this thriving beit midrash in the very
heart of Jerusalem will bear his late mother’s name
|
|
Another First...
An innovative addition to Midreshet Lindenbaum this year is Midreshet
Darkaynu, designed specifically for young women with special needs who -
until now - would not have had an opportunity to spend a year in a Torah
environment in Israel. “These are young women whose classmates, siblings
and neighbors have all gone to Israel for the year after high school,”
explains program director Elana Goldscheider. "Why shouldn't this
option be made available to them as well?” Students are ‘sidestreamed’
with the Maria and Joel Finkle Overseas Students Program, a unique
program feature allowing them to live with their mainstreamed counterparts
and learn alongside them for part of each day. The remainder of their
schedule is filled with vocational training, touring, acquisition of life
skills, and volunteer work. Says Goldscheider: “Besides offering the young
woman with special needs the opportunity to reinforce her ties with Israel
and the Jewish people, the very nature of the program strengthens her
independence and improves her self-esteem.”
|
< Back
Return to Ohr
Torah Stone
|
