Denah Weinberg was an Orthodox Jewish Rebbetzin and founder and dean of EYAHT College of Jewish Studies for Women in Jerusalem. EYAHT has over 2,000 alumnae. [1] She was also a speaker on women's issues in Israel and abroad, and published several essays in Jewish women's anthologies. She was married to Rabbi Noah Weinberg, founder of Yeshivat Aish HaTorah. [2] She died in Jerusalem on March 12, 2023.
Denah Weinberg was born in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York to Albert and Esther Goldman. Albert was the youngest of eight children of Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok Goldman, rabbi of Congregation Ohave Shalom in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and his wife, Dina. [3] Weinberg had two sisters, Naomi and Judy, both of whom are deceased.
She married Noah Weinberg in New York in February 1958. They lived in Jerusalem, Israel and raised 8 sons [4] and 4 daughters. One of their sons, Rabbi Hillel Weinberg, briefly succeeded his father as rosh yeshiva of Aish HaTorah. [5] She was widowed in 2009. [2]
After giving weekly classes to women in her Kiryat Sanz apartment for several years, in 1984, with seed money from Aish HaTorah, she opened the EYAHT college in two ground-floor apartments located across the street from her home. [6] [7] She named the college "EYAHT" (Hebrew : א.י.ה.ת.) by creating an acronym for the phrase, אשה יראת ה' היא תתהלל, Eesha Yirat Adonoy Hee Tithallal, "A woman who fears God, she shall be praised" (Proverbs 31:30).
Rebbitzen Weinberg taught The 48 Ways to Wisdom, a curriculum developed by her husband based on Pirkei Avot. She also taught a curriculum on the beauty and meaning of Shabbat, which she developed. She placed a strong emphasis on the role of the Jewish woman in her family and community, with special classes in shalom bayit (marital harmony) and chinuch habanim (raising Jewish children).
Shortly after inaugurating a five-story, 15,400-square-foot (1,430 m2) campus for EYAHT in the Romema neighborhood in 2014, [8] [7] EYAHT was closed.
On March 12, 2023, after many years of dealing with respiratory issues, Rebbetzin Denah Weinberg died. Aish HaTorah wrote on its instagram,
"It is with much sorrow and pain that we have
just learned of the passing of Rebetzin Denah Weinberg A"
H. All of our hearts are broken at the loss of this
groundbreaking women's educator and the wife of Rav
Noach Weinberg zt"I. May the Almighty comfort her family
during this difficult time." – Aish CEO Rabbi Steven Burg
The impact Rebetzin Weinberg has created since the
founding of Aish almost 50 years ago until today is
immeasurable. The entire Aish family joins in mourning
with the Weinberg family on the passing of this truly amazing human being."
Rebbetzin Weinberg was a featured speaker at the annual Aish HaTorah Partners Conference in New York. She published several essays in books geared to Jewish women.
During the 2006 Lebanon War, she launched a "1000 Soldiers, 1000 Women Praying" campaign to sign up 1000 women to pray once a day for the welfare of Israeli soldiers on the battle lines. [9]
Yitzchak Hutner, also known as Isaac Hutner, was an American Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva (dean).
Ner Israel Rabbinical College, also known as NIRC and Ner Yisroel, is a Haredi yeshiva in Pikesville, Maryland. It was founded in 1933 by Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman, a disciple of Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, dean of the Slabodka yeshiva in Lithuania. Rabbi Aharon Feldman, a disciple of Rabbi Ruderman and a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of America, became its head in 2001.
Rebbetzin Bruria David was an American-born Israeli Haredi Jewish rebbetzin and Torah scholar. She was the founder and dean of Beth Jacob Jerusalem, a prestigious Haredi religious girls seminary located in the Unsdorf neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel. She was the only child of Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner (1906–1980), Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, and the wife of Rabbi Yonasan David, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Pachad Yitzchok in Jerusalem's Har Nof neighborhood. Together with her husband and parents, she was on one of the airplanes hijacked by the Black September terrorists in 1970.
Aish formerly known as Aish HaTorah, is a Jewish educational organization. The focus of Aish is to spread traditional teachings to Jews around the globe utilizing a massive online presence made up of its website Aish.com and various social media channels. In addition to the educational organization there is also a yeshiva and women's seminary as well as several other in-person programs that make up the organization's main campus in Jerusalem.
Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg was a Polish-born, American-raised, Israeli Haredi rabbi and rosh yeshiva who, from 1965, made his home in the Kiryat Mattersdorf neighborhood of Jerusalem. He was the rosh yeshiva of the Torah Ore yeshiva in Kiryat Mattersdorf and Yeshivas Derech Chaim in Brooklyn. He was a posek, Gadol HaDor, and one of the last living Torah scholars to have been educated in the yeshivas of prewar Europe. He was often consulted on a range of communal and personal halachic issues. He was one of the rabbinic leaders of Kiryat Mattersdorf, together with Rabbi Yisroel Gans and Rabbi Yitzchok Yechiel Ehrenfeld. He was also a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Israel.
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Yisrael Noah Weinberg was an Orthodox rabbi and the founder of Aish HaTorah.
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Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman was a Russian-born American Talmudic scholar and rabbi who founded and served as rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Ner Yisroel in Baltimore.
Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah is the supreme rabbinical policy-making council of the Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah movements in Israel; and of Agudath Israel of America in the United States. Members are usually prestigious Roshei Yeshiva or Hasidic rebbes, who are also usually regarded by many Haredi Jews to be the Gedolim ("great/est") sages of Torah Judaism. Before the Holocaust, it was the supreme authority for the World Agudath Israel in Europe.
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Yitzchak Shmuel Halevi Berkovits is an American-born Orthodox Jewish rabbi, rosh yeshiva, rosh kollel, and posek in Israel. In 16 years as Menahel Ruchani of Yeshivas Aish HaTorah and halakha lecturer at EYAHT, Aish HaTorah's College of Jewish Studies for Women, he built a reputation as a lucid orator on Jewish law and philosophical topics and a mentor to hundreds of English-speaking, baalei teshuva young men and women. In 2001, he founded The Jerusalem Kollel, a rabbinic ordination and training program which prepares students for kiruv (outreach) positions around the world. In 2019, he was appointed rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Aish HaTorah in Jerusalem. He also serves as rosh kollel of an international network of evening kollelim run by Linas HaTzedek: The Center for Jewish Values in Israel and the United States, which spreads the awareness of the laws of bein adam lechaveiro.
Shmuel Yaakov Weinberg, known as Yaakov Weinberg was an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, Talmudist, and rosh yeshiva (dean) of Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore, Maryland, one of the major American non-Hasidic yeshivas. Weinberg was also a rabbinical advisor and board member in Haredi and Orthodox institutions such as Torah Umesorah, Agudath Israel of America and the Association for Jewish Outreach Programs.
EYAHT, was a full-time college for advanced Jewish learning for women in Jerusalem.
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