Out & About
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
A School for Open Orthodoxy
The Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School fund-raiser held at Pier 60 on March 6 celebrated the school’s philosophy of openness.
“We’re building a power source for K’lal Yisrael, to build an orthodoxy that is fearless, one that is not afraid of the secular culture, one that is not afraid to relate to the non-Jewish world,” the chairman of the board of the school, Howard Jonas, who founded the IDT Corporation, said.
The Modern Orthodox school, founded in 1999 by Rabbi Avi Weiss, has established itself with three graduating classes, producing 27 rabbis in the field.
“We’re extremely solvent. Our enrollment is growing, and our graduates are being placed,” Mr. Jonas said. The board is looking for a site in Riverdale to build a campus larger than its current home on the Upper West Side.
The best spokesmen for the school were the graduates and students who addressed guests. “Open orthodoxy is the only option,” Rabbi Saul Strosberg, a graduate of the school whose pulpit is in Nashville, said. “People have questions and challenges. When we are open, others become open to us.”
“I can think of no better institution than Yeshivat Chovevei Torah to pursue the modern orthodox ideal of inclusiveness,” student Yonah Berman said. “Personally, I see my rabbinate comprising components that allow Jews to see as many different axes as possible.”
“YCT creates a culture of listening, a culture of critical thinking, in a constant discussion of the challenges of modernity,” student Avidan Freedman said. “That’s the model I want to impart.”
“My passion is igniting a Jewish future, one that is personally meaningful and universally relevant,” Rabbi Avi Orlow, the director of Hillel at Washington University, said. “I strive to be a rabbi for all.”
At the dinner and awards ceremony that followed, the school presented awards to a managing director of Lehman Brothers, Michael Brill, and his wife, a writer, Judy Abel, and Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz and his wife, Sandra.
“On one side we are challenged by secularity and materialism, on the other side by insularity. Supporting YCT is our chance to fill a palpable void,” Mr. Brill said.
