Fellowship Pairs YU High School Students with University Faculty for College-Level Research
Five students from the Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy/Yeshiva University High School for Boys (YUHSB) have been named Senior Fellows for the 2012-13 academic year. Taking advantage of its physical and institutional proximity to Yeshiva University, the program—in existence since 2006—pairs competitively-selected high school seniors with University faculty to conduct thorough research in a variety of fields.
YUHSB seniors Yonatan Schwartz, Dovid Schwartz, Akiva Schiff, Yisrael Snow and Yosef Sklar will work closely with YU faculty.
“We wanted to make it a win-win for both the high school and the University,” said Dr. Ed Berliner, executive director of science management and clinical professor of physics at YU and director of the YUHSB Honors College. “For YU, it is an opportunity to expose our most impressive students to the high-caliber YU education, and in terms of the students, it truly is a unique opportunity to be paired with the best and brightest professors in their fields.”
Akiva Schiff, Dovid Schwartz, Yonatan Schwartz, Joseph Sklar and Yisrael Snow will spend the upcoming year studying topics as diverse as bible, chemistry and economics with YU faculty members Read the rest of this entry…
A Potent Symbol of Jewish Life in America, the Eruv Gets Unprecedented Exhibition at YU Museum
It divides private and public, sacred and secular, work and Sabbath. And you might live in one without knowing it.
The elevated train track on 3rd Ave was the western border of Manhattan¹s first eruv. Chatham Square (pictured here) was on the western edge of the Lower East Side. (YU Museum collection)
The eruv is one of the most fascinating, though little understood and sometimes controversial concepts in Jewish life. Now, for the first time, it’s the subject of an exhibition—It’s a Thin Line: The Eruv and Jewish Community in New York and Beyond—at the Yeshiva University Museum, near Union Square in Manhattan. Read the rest of this entry…
Professor Avri Ravid Reflects on His Experience as a War Correspondent During the Yom Kippur War
As we prepare for Yom Kippur 5773 the Middle East is going through some radical changes, whose precise meaning for Israel is still unclear. After decades of cold peace, but open borders, Israel is now erecting a 20-foot high barrier on its border with Egypt and talk of a break in relations is in the air. However, if these are rough seas, Yom Kippur of 1973 was a tsunami, that almost drowned Israel on its 25th birthday.
Prof. S. Abraham (Avri) Ravid
The period of 1967 to 1973 had seen the most radical changes in the self perception of the people of Israel.
As the war of 1967 loomed on the horizon, my parents received a call from their cousin in New York City. He asked them to send the kids, my brother and myself, to the US, so at least we could escape the impending massacre by the Arab armies. We did not go. Instead, my high school friends and I filled bags with sand and prepared the local stadium for mass burials. Then came the lightning victory of 1967.
1967 to 1973 were the short years of a feeling of Israeli invincibility.
Therefore, it was not surprising that on Yom Kippur in 1973, I was driving to the Golan Heights with an Uzi and a tape recorder, in my Fiat 600, a very small, old sub-compact that often broke down on trips over 20 miles. Read the rest of this entry…
Joel Schreiber Elected Chairman of the Board of Trustees; Lance Hirt, Chaim Wietschner and William Schwartz Elected Officers
Joel Schreiber has recently been elected chairman of the board of Trustees of Yeshiva University-affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS). In addition, newly elected RIETS officers include Lance Hirt as vice-chairman, Chaim Wietschner as treasurer, and Dr. William Schwartz as secretary.
Schreiber, left, replaces Berman, right, as chairman of the RIETS board of trustees.
Schreiber replaces outgoing chairman, Rabbi Julius Berman, who has been elected chairman emeritus.
“I leave the Chairmanship of the RIETS Board with great confidence in the fact that the leadership role is being assumed by Joel Schreiber, a fellow musmach of RIETS and one who has proven through decades of dedicated Jewish communal leadership that he has the unique qualifications to lead our institution to ever greater heights of service to our people,” said Berman. Read the rest of this entry…
Innocence Project Exoneree Shares Tale of Injustice with YU Students at Pre-Law Event
At an event to mark this year’s Constitution Day, which pays homage to the rights guaranteed to all American citizens, Yeshiva University’s Pre-Law Society heard from one man who had finally regained his freedom after serving 17 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
Barry Gibbs recounts his quest for justice at a Pre-Law Society event.
“It can happen to you like it happened to me,” said Barry Gibbs, whose name was cleared in 2005 by the Innocence Project, a national litigation and public policy organization started at YU’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law that is dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing. “Just like you’re innocent and you’re walking around on the street on your day off from school, I was innocent and carefree.” Read the rest of this entry…
In Its Ninth Year, YU’s Presidential Fellowship Expands Impact and Programming
They’re recruiting high school students in Los Angeles, preparing speeches for University leadership, and running programming around the country—and that’s just their first month on the job.
The 2012-13 Presidential Fellows
The 2012-13 cohort of Yeshiva University’s Presidential Fellowship in University and Community Leadership are rolling up their sleeves and getting down to business. The highly competitive program selects top graduates to spend 11 months working in departments across the institution. Fellows are mentored by senior staff and work on projects integral to the University while honing their professional skills in weekly graduate seminars with leaders from many backgrounds, including philanthropists Michael Steinhardt and Ronald Stanton, author A.J. Jacobs and human rights activist Brooke Goldstein. Read the rest of this entry…
Dedicated Residence Life Staff Create a Home Away from Home for Students
At Yeshiva University, campus life is about building a home together—in more ways than one.
Resident advisers help construct a house for Habitat for Humanity.
Each August, resident advisers (RAs) on both campuses undergo rigorous training to get ready for new students’ arrival. That means learning how to handle everything from medical emergencies to party planning and meeting with a wide range of University officials to brainstorm the best ways to help newcomers find their way and place at YU.
But this summer, the Wilf Campus residence life staff also honed their skills by sawing and sandblasting as they helped build a house with Westchester County’s Habitat for Humanity.
“We wanted to drive home the idea that you never do anything alone here,” said Sean Hirschhorn, Wilf’s assistant director of university housing and residence life. “There’s always someone to help you, whether you need to put together a planter box or choose a course for your major.” Read the rest of this entry…
New Book Brings Chancellor Lamm’s Timeless Commentaries to a New Generation
Yeshiva University will be publishing a selection of essays based on sermons on the book of Genesis delivered by YU Chancellor Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm early in his rabbinical career. The volume, entitled Derashot LeDorot , is sponsored by the Michael Scharf Publication Trust of Yeshiva University Press and OU Press, and is scheduled for release by Maggid Books, an imprint of Koren Publisher Jerusalem, on September 23, 2012.
Derashot LeDorot (literally “A Commentary for the Ages”) is culled from the files of the Lamm Archives of Yeshiva University and draws from lectures and speeches given by Rabbi Lamm between the years 1952 and 1976 Read the rest of this entry…
In State of the University Address, President Joel Recounts Progress, Outlines Challenges and Articulates Renewed Vision for the Future
In his first State of the University address, Yeshiva University President Richard M. Joel announced on September 12 that he would accept the Board of Trustees’ offer to extend his term until June 2018 for a planned 15 years in office and outlined his vision for a united and prosperous University, both as an academic and as a communal institution.
“It is here, in this complex and special space, that we can see our future,” said the president before hundreds of alumni, students, faculty and staff in the Gottesman Library Heights Lounge on the Wilf Campus. Hundreds more watched the streaming broadcast of the address online. “If I listen carefully, I hear the murmurings of a consecrated conversation taking place here—a conversation between Torah and the world, between tradition and modernity, between the sacred contents of this beautiful bastion of wisdom and the wide world around it so desperately yearning for the dissemination of those contents.” Read the rest of this entry…
Panel Discussion and Memorial Explore September 11 in Multiple Dimensions
On September 11, more than 150 Yeshiva University students gathered in Weissberg Commons on the Wilf Campus to mourn, commemorate and deepen their understanding of the horrific attacks that toppled the World Trade Center 11 years ago.
