Yeshiva Torah Vodaas[1] is a yeshiva in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
Yeshiva Torah Vodaas[1] is a yeshiva in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
The yeshiva was conceived in 1917 and formally opened in 1918, by Binyomin Wilhelm and Louis Dershowitz, to provide a yeshiva education to the children of families then moving from the Lower East Side to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. The two friends and Rabbi Zev Gold of the local Congregation Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom[2][3] formed a board and established the yeshiva on Keap Street in Williamsburg as an elementary school. The yeshiva later moved to a new building at 206 Wilson Street and remained there until 1967, while he elementary school remained at 206 Wilson St. until 1974 when it moved to East 9th Street in Brooklyn. The school was named after a yeshiva founded in Lida in 1905 by Rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines, which combined secular studies with Jewish studies and traditional Talmud study.[4] During this period the yeshiva was modeled after those in Europe, with religious studies taught in Yiddish and Talmud taught in the style of the European yeshivas.[5]
Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz headed the yeshiva from 1922 to 1948. A mesivta (yeshiva high school) was opened in 1926[6]: 76 and later a yeshiva gedola[further explanation needed]. Rabbi Dovid Leibovitz, a torah scholar from Europe, headed the yeshiva's beit midrash (study hall) from 1929 but left after four years to start his own yeshiva (Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim) after personal conflicts with Mendlowitz. Two years later, in 1935, Rabbi Shlomo Heiman became rosh yeshiva (head of the yeshiva), a position he held until his death in 1944.[7]
After Mendlowitz died in 1948 rabbis Yaakov Kamenetzky and Refael Reuvain Grozovsky became roshei yeshiva.[8]
The yeshiva has since expanded to include a beit midrash in Monsey, an elementary school division in nearby Marine Park, and two summer camps. The student body from nursery to postgraduate kollel, numbered nearly 2,000 students in 2012.[9]
"Torah im Derech Eretz" historically influenced the yeshiva's philosophy,[10] but today it is strongly influenced by the Haredi philosophy. However, Torah Vodaath is one of the many major haredi yeshivas that allow its students to attend college while studying at the yeshiva. The great majority of the yeshiva's graduates go on to work in fields that are not related to the Torah education that they received in yeshiva.[11]
The three roshei yeshiva as of 2018 were rabbis Yisroel Reisman, Yosef Savitsky, and Yitzchok Lichtenstein.[12]
The previous roshei yeshiva include rabbis Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, Yisroel Belsky, Avraham Yaakov Pam, Shlomo Heiman, Dovid Leibowitz, Yaakov Kamenetsky, Shachne Zohn, Zelik Epstein, Gedalia Schorr, Elya Chazan, Reuvain Fein, Simcha Sheps, Moshe Rosen (Nezer HaKodesh), and Reuvain Grozovsky.[13]
