Jay Weinstein with his wife Sharon  and daughter Ora: "We know we'll  always be able to count on  Straus-Amiel."

Each year, Ohr Torah Stone’s Straus-Amiel Practical Rabbinics Program places more than 30 rabbis in Diaspora communities across the globe. Trained specifically to meet the diverse needs of Diaspora congregations, Straus-Amiel graduates are invigorating and rejuvenating Jewish communities in Europe, Russia, Australia, South Africa, North and South America and even China.

“Even though every student in this program is going to a different location, it feels like we’re all going out together as a group,” says Jay Weinstein, 25, who is completing the Straus-Amiel Practical Rabbinics Program and preparing to begin a rabbinic internship at Congregation Shaarei Tefila in Dallas, Texas. “We know we will always be able to count on Straus-Amiel – and on each other – for support, advice and encouragement.”

Weinstein, who is studying for semicha at Yeshiva University, participated in the Straus program while spending a year in Israel as part of his studies. Next year, as a rabbinic intern, his activities will include shadowing the congregation’s rabbi, teaching shiurim, running outreach programs and working with students on the local college campus.

The most fascinating part of the program, Weinstein relates, was hearing about the visits of its director, Rabbi Eliyahu Birnbaum, to the hundreds of alumni already serving around the world. “The program alerted us to the real-life situations that can arise and the halachic issues that we’ll be encountering in the field,” he continues. “And we had the top people in many fields teaching us how to respond to these challenges.”

Weinstein, a native of Miami, is a grandson of the late George Weinstein, who endowed the Straus Seminary’s George Weinstein Semicha-University Program, enabling students to pursue an academic degree while studying for the rabbinate. “My grandfather worked intensively with Rabbi Riskin to develop the program,” says the proud grandson. “It’s been great to see how many people are benefitting from it.”

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