Ohr Torah Stone - Misplaced Pages

Ohr Torah Stone
אור תורה סטון

Formation	1983; 41 years ago (1983)
Founded at	Efrat
Services	Jewish education and social justice
President	Rabbi Dr. Kenneth Brander
Founder, Chancellor and Rosh HaYeshiva	Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Riskin
Subsidiaries	Center for Jewish–Christian Understanding and Cooperation (CJCUC), Midreshet Lindenbaum
Website	www.ots.org.il

Ohr Torah Stone (OTS) (Hebrew: אור תורה סטון) is an international Modern Orthodox organization that aims to develop Jewish life, learning, and leadership. The organization is led by Rabbi Kenneth Brander. OTS was founded by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin in 1983. As of 2020, OTS included 27 educational institutions under its auspices.

The organization also includes a network of over 300 emissaries who serve in positions of spiritual and educational leadership across North America, South America, Central America, Australia, and New Zealand. The organization has implemented initiatives in Jewish women’s leadership and empowerment, leadership training, Jewish outreach, and social action. These programs have garnered national and international recognition for their innovative approach. OTS has stated that its primary guiding principle is to ensure the accessibility of Judaism to every Jew—particularly addressing populations that have historically been marginalized, disenfranchised, or alienated.

Jewish women's empowerment

OTS programs for women have played a role in advancing Orthodox female scholarship and leadership. The organization established the first school dedicated to teaching advanced Talmud to post-high school-age women. The women's college affiliated with OTS hosts the largest women's beit midrash (study hall) in recorded Jewish history. Notably, graduates from the college college have become leaders in Jewish communities globally, with one even being the first female to officially serve as the director of a rabbinical court.

OTS's women's college developed a program specifically for women with special needs. The curriculum allows participants to acquire both learning and vocational skills, build independence, and improve self-esteem while expanding their love of Torah, Israel, and the Jewish people. The program had proven so successful that in 2017, a parallel program was established for young men.

Another OTS program enables religious women to serve in the Israeli army. Previously, Israeli women were forced to choose between service to their country and an observant lifestyle. By way of the program, female participants are inducted as a group and strengthened by intense study before, during, and after their service.

OTS also opened the first school in the world to train, certify, and ordain women as heter hora’ah, or "permission to make Halachic decisions," for service in the rabbinical courts. Only because of OTS’s appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court did women win the legal right to practice in the courts–an arena that was previously open only to men. The school then opened a Legal Aid Center and Hotline for Israeli women who are agunot (The agunah is a woman literally “chained” to a dead or abusive marriage whose husband refuses to grant her a Jewish writ of divorce) and need free advice and legal representation in matters pertaining to the process of obtaining a religious divorce.

Contemporary Jewish leadership

Ohr Torah Stone’s Rabbinical Seminary prepares rabbis to be both fluent in secular learning as well as the Talmud. The curriculum is geared toward contemporary concerns as well as Jewish law and legal texts. At the same time, the OTS Educators Institute comprehensively trains educators to teach Judaic Studies in both Orthodox and non-Orthodox state and community schools across Israel and the Diaspora.

An additional OTS yeshiva is geared toward young men both with and without previous yeshiva backgrounds from North America, Europe, South Africa, and Australia.

Hundreds of OTS-trained teachers and spiritual leaders have served in communities spanning the globe.

Many of the OTS graduates have joined the ranks of OTS-trained Jewish Cultural Facilitators who provide formal and informal Jewish education for Israelis of all ages and backgrounds. This initiative works in conjunction with Israeli Community Centers. Media coverage has reported that these facilitators actively promote Jewish values, national unity, and heritage awareness in a non-coercive environment.

OTS high schools

OTS has established 6 modern Orthodox high schools within the Jerusalem and Gush Etzion regions. All of these high schools offer official matriculation and have been awarded the recognition of excellence from the Israeli Ministry of Education.

OTS around the world

Each year, OTS sends spiritual and educational leaders to serve as emissaries in Jewish communities all over the world. These emissaries are active in synagogues, campuses and schools, and Jewish communities across the globe.

Schools and programs

Programs for men

Joseph and Gwendolyn Straus Rabbinical Seminary
Robert M. Beren College
Robert M. Beren Machanaim Hesder Yeshiva
OTS Metivta, Carmiel
Elaine And Norm Brodsky Darkaynu Program

Programs for women

Midreshet Lindenbaum College for Women, Jerusalem
Midreshet Lindenbaum-Lod
Midreshet Lindenbaum-Matat, Carmiel
Yad La’isha: The Monica Dennis Goldberg Legal Aid Center And Hotline For Women

Emissary programs

Beren-Amiel Educational Emissaries
Claudia Cohen Women Educators Institute
Maarava – Rabbinic Emissaries to Sephardic Communities
Straus-Amiel Rabbinic Emissaries
OTS Amiel BaKehila
Ohr Torah Nidchei Yisrael
Yachad Program for Jewish Identity

Junior high and high schools

Derech Avot Junior High and High School for Boys, Efrat
Jacob Sapirstein Junior High and High School For Boys, Ramot, Jerusalem
Jennie Sapirstein Junior High and High School For Girls, Ramot, Jerusalem
Neveh Channah High School for Girls, In Memory Of Anna Ehrman, Gush Etzion
Neveh Shmuel Yeshiva High School for Boys, In Memory Of Samuel Pinchas Ehrman, Efrat
Oriya Girls' High School, Gush Etzion
Ann Belsky Moranis Program For Arts And Drama

Conversion programs

Conversion Institute for Spanish Speakers - Efrat, Israel
Jewish Learning Center - New York

International programs

Hertog Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding And Cooperation (CJCUC)
OMEK - A Transformative Learning and Touring Experience in Israel

References

Edward Abramson, A Circle in the Square: Rabbi Shlomo Riskin Reinvents the Synagogue, Urim Publications 2008
http://www.rabbis.org/news/article.cfm?id=100951 Archived 2019-02-02 at the Wayback Machine, Rabbinical Council of America Website, Unknown Author, Retrieved on April 23, 2017
"Ohr Torah Stone: Who We Are". OTS. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
Rabbi Eliahu Birnbaum, "Rav Olami," First Source (Hebrew), October 4, 2013.
Koren, Rabbi Nir (23 September 2014). "Kshe'Kol haShofar Nishma Be'veit haKele Be'Meksiko" (in Hebrew). NRG. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
Koren, Rabbi Nir (21 December 2014). "Chanuka be'Kolumbia" (in Hebrew). NRG. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
Ravid, Shira (27 June 2016). "Emissaries in their Own Right" (in Hebrew). Kipa Website. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
^ Isi Leibler, "The Incredible Rabbi Shlomo Riskin," The Jerusalem Post, Thursday, March 3, 2011,
Zev Eleff, Modern Orthodox Judaism: A Documentary History, University of Nebraska Press, 2016
Chagai Segel, First Source (Hebrew), January 1, 2012
"The Sound of the Shofar". TIME Magazine. 4 October 1971. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
Sharon, Jeremy (15 November 2016). "Woman to Serve as Rabbinical Court Administrator". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 30 April 2017.
Katsman, Hannaah (26 January 2017). "Intergenerational Learning". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
SOFER, BARBARA (15 March 2013). "'Kol dichfin, kol ditzrich': All with special needs". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
Bracha Bender, "A Year of their Own," Mishpacha Magazine, Vol. Feb 8, 2012.
Datner, Natan. "Tzulam beYom Chol". Israel Broadcasting Authority. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
Wagner, Matthew (9 August 2006). "Women of Valor: Rabbis spar over IDF service for women". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
"About OTS". Ohr Torah Stone. Retrieved 2022-08-24.
Sharon, Jeremy (16 January 2017). "Father of Divorce Refuser Avoids Jail Time, But Banned From Leaving Israel". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
Ettinger, Yair (15 March 2016). "In Historic Ruling, Israeli Rabbinical Court Jails Father for Abetting Son's Refusal of Divorce". Haaretz. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
http://hamodia.com/2017/04/19/torn-torah-scrolls-laid-rest-74-years/, Hamodia Staff, "Torn Torah Scrolls Laid to Rest After 74 Years," Wednesday, April 19, 2017 at 6:38 pm.
https://ots.org.il/straus-seminary-musmach-appointed-chief-rabbi-frankfurt/, "Straus Seminary Musmach Elected Chief Rabbi of Frankfurt", March 9, 2016.
Kopatch, Gil (8 September 2015). "We Need to Serve as a Light Unto the Nations and Serve as a Model of Unity" (in Hebrew). NRG. Retrieved 23 April 2017.