Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies

Last updated
Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies
Other name
IAJS, Kollel Toronto
Type Private yeshiva
Established1997 (1997)
FounderRabbi Shlomo Eliyahu Miller, Rabbi Yaakov Hirschman
Parent institution
Kollel Toronto
Religious affiliation
Orthodox Judaism
Vice-presidentAlbert Engel
Dean Rabbi Nosson Hofman
Address
515 Coldstream Avenue
, , ,
Colours Blue and White   
Website kollel.com/iajs/

The Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies is a Canadian Orthodox Jewish yeshiva. It is accredited by the Ontario Ministry of Education as a private university and has sovereignty to award bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees in Talmudic law and Judaic studies.

Contents

History

In 1970 a group of ten families from the BMG Institute for Advanced Learning of Lakewood, New Jersey moved to Toronto and founded the Toronto Kollel. The founders include Rav Shlomo Eliyahu Miller, the Rosh Kollel of the Kollel Avreichim Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies in Toronto, and head of its Beis Din (rabbinical court) and Rav Yaakov Hirschman.

Known previously as the Institute for Advanced Talmudic Study - Kollel Avreichim, it was incorporated by letters patent dated October 9, 1970, as an institution of higher learning in theology, religious education, scholarship, and research. [1]

Facility

The building houses the 3,000-square-foot Bais Medrash, classrooms, three book libraries, a CD library, two computer online libraries, the Bar Ilan computer resource library, the Kol Halashon online Lecture library, meeting rooms, a kitchen, and a dining room.

The Ladies Auxiliary maintains the Weinstock Memorial Library which is open to the public and runs a series of community lectures.

The New Campus

During the 50th Anniversary Dinner (which took place on November 28, 2022, at The Embassy Grand Convention Center), The Chairman Mr. Ben Friedman Toronto, announced the purchase of a new apartment building located on Fraserwood Avenue, which will be named The Shimon Stern Residence. The new building will allow the institution to expand their scholars base and host new families who will join the Kollel in the future. In addition, Mr. Ben Friedman also presented a 3d rendering of the new Bais Medrash to be built on Coldstream Avenue. The new building will have more study halls, plenty of parking and a state of the art library. [2]

Kollel Toronto

Kollel Toronto is an institution of learning consisting of a core group of scholars who are engaged in full-time Torah study at an advanced level—headed by Roshei Kollel, Rav Shlomo Miller שליט"א* and Rav Yaakov Hirschman שליט"א.

Programs

Notable alumni

Rabbis in Toronto

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kollel</span> Institute for full-time, advanced study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature

A kollel is an institute for full-time, advanced study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature. Like a yeshiva, a kollel features shiurim (lectures) and learning sedarim (sessions); unlike most yeshivot, the student body of a kollel typically consists mostly of married men. A kollel generally pays a regular monthly stipend to its members.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aharon Kotler</span> American rabbi; founder of Beth Medrash Govoha

Aharon Kotler was an Orthodox Jewish rabbi and a prominent leader of Orthodox Judaism in Lithuania and the United States; the latter being where he founded Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood Township, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hebron Yeshiva</span> Branch of the Slabodka Yeshiva in Hebron, relocated afterward to Jerusalem

Hebron Yeshiva, also known as Yeshivas Hevron, or Knesses Yisroel, is a yeshiva. It originated in 1924 when the roshei yeshiva (deans) and 150 students of the Slabodka Yeshiva, known colloquially as the "mother of yeshivas", relocated to Hebron.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin</span> Yeshiva school in the United States

Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin or Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin is an American Haredi Lithuanian-type boys' and men's yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York. The school's divisions include a preschool, a yeshiva ketana, a mesivta, a college-level beth midrash, and Kollel Gur Aryeh, its post-graduate kollel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yeshivas Ner Yisroel</span> Yeshiva in Pikesville, Maryland, US

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bobov (Hasidic dynasty)</span> Polish Hasidic dynasty

Bobov is a Hasidic community within Haredi Judaism, originating in Bobowa, Galicia, in southern Poland, and now headquartered in the neighborhood of Borough Park, in Brooklyn, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isser Zalman Meltzer</span> Belarusian rabbi, rosh yeshiva, and posek (1870–1953)

Isser Zalman Meltzer, was a Jewish rabbi, rosh yeshiva and posek. He was known as the "Even HaEzel", after the title of his commentary on Rambam's Mishneh Torah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shlomo Miller</span>

Shlomo Eliyahu Miller is a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah. He is a Rosh Kollel (dean) and co-founder of the Kollel Avreichim Institute for Advanced Talmud Study, a haredi post-yeshiva educational institution in Toronto and head of its Beis Din. He is a Litvish Haredi Posek in Toronto.

Yeshivas Bais Yisroel, colloquially known as "Bais", is an English-language, Litvish Orthodox yeshiva for post-high-school boys located in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood of Jerusalem. Founded in 1985 by Rabbi Doniel Lehrfeld, the yeshiva's student body currently numbers over 100 students mainly from the United States, England, Canada, South Africa, Mexico, Chile and Australia. The yeshiva also operates a kollel for 40 married men, many of whom attended the yeshiva before marriage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Izhbitza-Radzin</span> Polish Hasidic dynasty

Izhbitza-Radzin is the name of a dynasty of Hasidic rebbes. The first rebbe of this dynasty was Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner, author of Mei Hashiloach, in the city of Izhbitza. Mordechai Yosef founded his own Hasidic movement in the year 5600 (1839), leaving the court of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neve Yerushalayim</span> School in Jerusalem, Israel

Neve Yerushalayim is the oldest and largest college for Jewish women in the world. Founded in 1970 to educate baalot teshuva in the why and how of living an Orthodox Jewish life, Neve has approximately 35,000 alumni. Its campus in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem is also home to 11 schools and seminaries for post-high school, undergraduate, and graduate students from religious backgrounds.

Yeshiva Torah Temimah is an Orthodox yeshiva with branches in Brooklyn, New York and Lakewood, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beth Medrash Govoha</span> Beis medrash and kollel school in the US

Beth Medrash Govoha is a Haredi Jewish Lithuanian yeshiva in Lakewood Township, New Jersey. It was founded by Rabbi Aharon Kotler in 1943 and is the second-largest yeshiva in the world, after Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. As of 2019, it had 6,715 students, 2,748 regular and 3,967 in Kollel status. The principal Rosh yeshiva since 1982 is Rabbi Malkiel Kotler. Talmud and halakha studies in the institution are carried in the form of over 200 small groups, Chaburos, which consist of several students mentored by a veteran, each pursuing its own specific curriculum with an emphasis on individual learning.

Yeshiva Gedola of Passaic is an advanced yeshiva in the Passaic Park neighborhood of Passaic, New Jersey catering to post-high-school-age men. Founded in 1973 by Rabbis Chaim Davis and Gershon Weisenfeld, and further developed by Rabbi Meir Stern who replaced Rabbi Wiesenfeld when the latter became ill before the yeshiva's opening, it developed into one of the leading yeshiva gedolas in the United States and revitalized the small Orthodox community of Passaic.

Kollel Ohr Yosef is an institute of rabbinic study in Ontario, Canada, serving the Thornhill and northern Toronto communities. As a "community kollel," its faculty engages in advanced study and also reaches out to the community by offering free informal sessions and religious guidance, literally on a constant basis. The open-door institute also hosts all conventional prayers, including holiday services. The Kollel is recognized as a place where one can drop in spontaneously to connect with friendly and knowledgeable scholars. It aims to permit the Torah to speak with its original, authentic voice. The faculty's energy is devoted especially to religious engagement and the dissemination of scholarship. The Kollel's widespread financial support is purely voluntary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nosson Meir Wachtfogel</span> Orthodox rabbi (1910–1998)

Nosson Meir Wachtfogel, known as the Lakewood Mashgiach, was an Orthodox rabbi and long-time mashgiach ruchani of Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey. He was one of the primary builders of that yeshiva into a world-class institution, enacting the goals and direction set forth by its founding rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Aharon Kotler. He also helped establish "branches" of the Lakewood Yeshiva in dozens of cities, and pioneered the community kollel concept with the opening of combination Torah learning/outreach centers in the United States and other countries. A revered mentor and guide to thousands of students over a career that spanned more than 50 years, he was a strong advocate and prime example of musar study and working on one's spiritual self-development.

Shmuel Halevi Schecter was a Canadian–American Orthodox Jewish rabbi, educator, and author. Born in Quebec and raised in Baltimore, he traveled to Eastern Europe to study at the Mir Yeshiva as a teenager and at the Kelm Talmud Torah as a young married man. In 1940 he returned to the United States, where he was a co-founder of the first kollel in America, Beth Medrash Govoha, in White Plains, New York. He was a Torah educator in New York and Boston for more than 50 years, and served as dean of Mesivta Toras Emes in Brooklyn. He published a commentary on Orchot Chaim LeHoRosh, a musar work.

References

  1. "Founders of Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies". Archived from the original on 10 August 2014. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  2. Weiss, Baruch (November 2022). "Kollel Toronto; An Overview". Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies. Toronto, Canada (published 2022-11-28): 48.

43°42′52.5″N79°25′48.3″W / 43.714583°N 79.430083°W / 43.714583; -79.430083