Harav Malkiel Kotler shlita, Harav Shmuel Kamenetsky, shlita, Rav Shalom Kamenetsky, Rabbi Baum, Rosh Kollel, and the yungeleit of the kollel. |
Great idea!!!
Let's pour more Jewish money into Jewish Blood Soaked Europe ...
Kollim in Israel are struggling to survive, yet our Gedoilei Hador sit fit to support Hitler's Willing Executioners!
When will we ever learn? When????
Gmar Tov!!!
Gmar Tov!!!
In the coming weeks, a group of yungeleit from Beth Medrash Govoha will be leaving Lakewood to establish a new kollel in Berlin, Germany, with the goal of infusing the vibrant and growing kehillah that has developed there with an increased ruach haTorah.
The group of six kollelmembers will be led by Rabbi Yaakov Baum, who saw the challenge as a unique opportunity.
“There’s a lot that we take for granted living in Lakewood or any center of the frumworld. For families that grew up in those worlds, it’s a chance to show a community what it means to be a ben Torah or a product of Bais Yaakov,” he said. “It goes far beyond learning and shiurim. It’s a way for us to showcase what a Torahdig home looks like and to make that concept part of the spectrum of Berlin’s beautiful kehillah.”
Rabbi Baum is originally from Detroit and is a son-in-law of Harav Shalom Kamenetsky. Until taking his present position in Berlin, he was a Rosh Chaburah in Beth Medrash Govoha, where he has studied for several years.
While certain that they will face challenges in the new environment far from what the average American kollel yungerman is used to, Rabbi Baum said that he is confident that with the strength of the group that has been selected that “it will be easy to do good things.”
He also noted the phenomenal impression that the Berlin community made on him during his brief visit there.
“It’s a very sincere and cohesive group of people who have a real desire to grow in ruchniyus,” said Rabbi Baum.
The kollel will be situated in the Skoblo Center, the home of the Khal Adas Yisroel shul and a community kindergarten. It will share the beis medrash with the Rabbiner Seminar of Berlin, a modern-day incarnation of the historic Hildesheimer Seminary. Continuing the mission of Harav Ezriel Hildesheimer, zt”l, the seminary aims to produce Rabbanim to meet the needs of Orthodox communities throughout Germany.
The core of the Adas Yisroel kehillah, with which the kollel will be associated, consists of 75 families, largely from the former Soviet Union. It is a young community that boasts a Jewish elementary school funded by the Lauder Foundation, which has been the main partner in much of the revival of Jewish life in Berlin.
The Berlin project is one of 80 kollelim worldwide that are affiliated with Beth Medrash Govoha. Rabbi Sroyohu Levitansky, Director of Beth Medrash Govoha’s Community Development Office, worked with contacts in Berlin and elsewhere in selecting yungeleit and working to make the project a reality.
“We looked for yungeleit who we felt could engage the members of Berlin’s kehillah and help it keep growing,” he said. “Obviously, we are looking for people with a certain level of learning, but who also have a certain openness and energy who can connect to people who come from very different backgrounds than theirs.”
The “out-of-town” kollelim generally follow a similar model of two sedarim in which yungeleit learn b’chavrusa with each other on the level they were accustomed to in the yeshivos they came from. Nights, and often parts of Sundays and Shabbosos, have organized programs that allow them to study together with members of the broader community.
American-born Rabbi Joshua Spinner, Executive VP and CEO of The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, has been a leader of the Berlin kehillah since 1997. It was largely as a result of his initiative that the idea of a kollel in Berlin began to take root.
“With the support of Ronald Lauder, the Wolfson family, and others, we have built up a real Torah kehillah here that is yesh me’ayin. There is nothing else like it in Germany or even in most of central Europe,” he said.
While partially funded by Beth Medrash Govoha, much of the funding for the kollel has been raised from Jews in Berlin and around Europe. Demonstrating the extent of the influence that the kollel could potentially have, he noted that several traditional but not strictly Orthodox Jews in the city had agreed to donate to the cause, but only on condition that they could set up times to learn together with members of the kollel. Another made a condition that one of the yungeleit give regular shiurim in the shul he attends.
Rabbi Spinner said that in many ways, bringing American yungeleit to Berlin was easier than to other overseas locations, noting that nearly all the kehillah’s members, and even most residents of the neighbor around the Jewish community, are proficient in English.
“We have a night kollel and an Avos Ubanim; it’s amazing what was born here in Berlin, but now we want to take things to the next level and have a group whose job it is to make sure that there’s a kol Torah that doesn’t stop,” said Rabbi Spinner.
Typical, chabad with blood sweat and tears plows and seeds the barren land and their nemesis come to pick the fruits of their labor.
ReplyDeleteThis happens all over the world.The Gedolim would not allow their Yungerleit to move in to a city until there's a Minyan of Shomer Shabbos. Only after years of sweat and blood by Chabad to finally reach this milestone to the Gedolim establish a Kollel and they tgen in the Hamodia that they established Torah in the city completely ignoring the twenty years of community and Torah set up by Chabad.
DeleteLet's see how they could go to a desolate area and sweat to make roots.
For years and years, Chabad couldn't produce high-quality talmidei chachomim. They had to wait until the Litvishe yeshivos "with blood and sweat and tears seeded the barren land", and then they swooped in and recruited them (Schochet, Heller, Wagner, etc.) What goes around comes around......
DeleteWhat do you expect from "Yekes"
ReplyDeleteThey are true Germans at heart.
Their heart yearns for the "alte heime"
I'm not sure what your problem is. There are 1,000 yiddishe families in Berlin. Now that they are there, and are asking for help to be more Torahdig, should the Kolel refuse to go?
ReplyDelete10;12,
ReplyDeletedidn't everbody scream שנה הבאה בירושלים yesterday ? more torahdig would be to help them make aliyah, how many times in history were German Jewish towns destroyed?
7:05, Chabad's mission is to produce yidden not produce talmidei chachomim, I hear a Lakewwood bias . They're also there for you on your business and luxury trips to Osh Kosh so that you can eat kosher and daven and say kaddish with a minyan if necessary. No need to criticize and pull up names whom nobody ever heard of.
ReplyDeleteThen why should they complain about a kollel coming in to make talmidei chachomim? Lubavitch doesn't care about learning!
DeleteAnd if the biggest rabbonim and roshei yeshiva in Lubavitch in the last forty years (toronto, johannesburg, los angeles, crown heights) are "names nobody heard of", then that says quite a lot about how little you care for torah and halacha.....
8:47 makes an interesting point -- but aside from that, I don't see anything wrong with this... Spread Torah to more places!
ReplyDelete10:12
ReplyDelete"There are 1,000 yiddishe families in Berlin. Now that they are there, and are asking for help to be more Torahdig, should the Kolel refuse to go?
They should be ashamed of themselves...i'll bet none of those Jews living in the cursed Berlin lost anyone in WW2 .....
They should leave pronto and move to the country that G-D gave us ....
it's no longer barren its developed and waiting for them to make aliyah ..
Berlin doesn't need "kollilim" it needs more arabs ...
I know israelies that went to live in Berlin...
Delete"Kollim in Israel are struggling to survive, yet our Gedoilei Hador sit fit to support Hitler's Willing Executioners!"
ReplyDeleteI didn't know you were so concerned about the plight of Israeli Kollelim!
Germay doesn't need Lubavitch and certainly doesnt need Lakewood with their "torah"
ReplyDeletethe Germans already told us at Kristelnacht... that they aren't interested ...
What Germany needs are Arabs ...and the more the better ... I heard they could use some Palestinians ...
6:50,
ReplyDeleteMaybe your first fib of the year is your first sentence.Just throw mud, Lubavitch doesn't care about learning.
And learning by itself on tuchis without contributing is practically nothing. All over , the seforim write that learning MUST lead to maaseh, doing for others.I'm surprised that such a talmid chacham as yourself who obviously cares about learning, Torah and halacha doesn't know that.
For someone who's concerned with learning and halacha and unknown names, you just violated a halachic issur against loshon harah especially a vicious one , totally false and especially a day after Yom Kippur, nothing you say is legitimate and even worthy of any kind of response.
ReplyDeleteNow your'e carrying on because we're supposed to know your 3 names plus the etc. Are you a kollel guy and has time to read biographies after 2:00? My business runs from 8:00 - 7:00, so me and the rest of us who work don't have time to read everything don't care about Torah and learning, that's some kind of deduction.
ReplyDelete