Yishai Eisenberg is First Non-Israeli in 20 Years to Win International Bible Competition
On April 16, Yishai Eisenberg, a freshman at the Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy / Yeshiva University High School for Boys (YUHSB), became the first non-Israeli in 20 years to win the Chidon HaTanakh, Israel’s annual International Bible Competition for high school students. Eisenberg, of Passiac, NJ, dominated the competition from the outset, becoming the first champion in its 50-year run to share the winner’s circle when he finished the final round tied with Elior Babian of Beit Shemesh.
Rabbi Shai Peron, minister of education; Yishai Eisenberg; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; and Elior Babian.
An illustration of the country’s desire to connect Jewish independence to Jewish values, the annual contest took place on Yom Ha’atzmaut at The Jerusalem Theater, under the auspices of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Rabbi Shai Piron. Read the rest of this entry…
Students Commemorate Israel with Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut Programs
Students, faculty and staff honored the memories of Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror at Yeshiva University’s annual Yom Hazikaron (Israel Memorial Day) ceremony on Monday night, April 15. The moving program featured words of inspiration from President Richard M. Joel; Rabbi Dovid Miller, mashigach ruchani [spiritual advisor], Rabbi Meir Goldwicht, RIETS Rosh Yeshiva, among others, as well as an a cappela performance and memorial candle lighting service.
President Richard M. Joel: Israel Must be Seen as a Destination for Our Destiny
As often as possible, I leave the confines of my 12th-floor office and meander around the campus of Yeshiva University. I do this for many reasons, principally because I so enjoy speaking with our students and absorbing the sights and insights of our campus experience as much as they do.
But even when students tuck themselves away in their classrooms and study halls, I examine the magnificent buildings in which our students pore over their texts, both Judaic and secular. Those edifices themselves seem to speak almost as loudly as the passionate, smart and vociferous undergraduates studying within them, serving as architectural symbols of the many great institutions of learning that we Jews have built together in North America and around the world.
One particular structural feature of our campus always strikes a chord in me. Three flags, each flapping and flailing in the unremitting Washington Heights wind: The flag of Yeshiva University, the flag of the United States of America, the flag of the State of Israel. Degel Yisrael, that 65-year-old symbol of hope with its ancient Star of David affixed at its center, with thousands of years of Jewish endurance and hope enchantingly summarized in its blue and white hues.
And I ask myself: What message does that flag bear for the sprawling, growing, Diaspora-based institution over which it flies? Why fly the flag of Israel? Read the rest of this entry…
Knesset Member Rabbi Dov Lipman Shares Personal and Political Journey with YU Students
On April 10, Member of the Knesset Rabbi Dov Lipman gave Yeshiva University students an inside perspective on his transformation from Orthodox American rabbi and educator to revolutionary Israeli policymaker at a YU Israel Club event on the Wilf Campus.
American-born Knesset member Dov Lipman shares his story at YU.
“When my family and I boarded our Nefesh B’Nefesh flight in 2004, the farthest thing from my mind was entering Israeli politics, and becoming a Knesset member was even further,” Lipman told the crowd. Read the rest of this entry…
Yeshiva College Associate Dean’s Visit to Israel will Strengthen YU-Bar-Ilan Connection
Dr. Raji Viswanathan, associate dean of academic affairs and professor of chemistry at Yeshiva University’s Yeshiva College, was recently selected as a Fulbright Specialist. The competitive position will enable her to create new opportunities for collaboration between YU and Israel’s Bar-Ilan University as well as share her own research in computational chemistry with an advanced cadre of Israeli scholars.
Dr. Raji Viswanathan
The Fulbright Specialist program promotes linkage between American academic and professionals and their counterparts at host institutions overseas. Project activities focus on strengthening and supporting the developmental needs of host institutions abroad and can include short-term lecturing, conducting seminars, teacher training and special conferences of workshops, as well as collaborating on curriculum planning or institutional and faculty development. Each application is peer-reviewed.
“My goal is to initiate faculty and student exchange,” said Viswanathan. “We already have some connection with BIU through our summer science research program, which places talented undergraduates from Yeshiva College and Stern College for Women in one of the state-of-the-art research laboratories of BIU’s life science, exact science or engineering faculties.” Read the rest of this entry…
YU Students Engage in Volunteer and Service Learning Missions Around the World
This winter break, 90 Yeshiva University students took part in an array of hands-on community building projects in Israel, the United States, Nicaragua and Mexico.
Counterpoint Israel participants conducted English language and art camps for Israeli teens.
Organized by YU’s Center for the Jewish Future, the missions differed widely in focus, ranging from service-learning and experiential education to humanitarian aid. Building on the success of the Counterpoint Israel summer program, 39 YU students ran a series of winter camps for 500 Israeli teens in Jerusalem, Kiryat Malachi and Dimona that sought to strengthen their English language skills and facilitate self-exploration through art.
In Mexico, 16 students assisted with farming and harvesting in local private and public gardens, building pools for aquaculture development and contributing to the community’s ecotourism project, in collaboration with a local non-profit organization that works within the Mayan community to promote environmental sustainability, advance the integration of women in the economy and strengthen the capacity of grassroots groups.
A group of 16 students also volunteered in Nicaragua with Servicios Medicos Comunales, an NGO that promotes community-based sustainable development in the southwestern district of San Juan del Sur, by assisting with the construction of a public library—a project started by previous CJF winter mission participants. And 19 students traveled across Texas—from Houston to San Antonio to Dallas—on the CJF’s “Jewish Life Coast to Coast” program, meeting with local rabbis, educators and communal leaders to gain a better understanding of the unique challenges faced by these diverse Jewish communities. Read the rest of this entry…
Moshe Sokolow on Israel’s Endangered Ally, the Island Country of Palau
The recent UN General Assembly vote granting observer nation status to Palestine was 138 in favor, 41 abstentions, and nine opposed. In addition to the United States, along with Canada, Panama, and the Czech Republic, the few nations that supported Israel’s opposition to the resolution were Palau, Micronesia, Nauru, and the Marshall Islands. It would be tragic if Israel were to lose the vote of any of its few reliable supporters at the United Nations, but that is just what might happen over the next few years—not due to any political intrigue but on account of global warming! At the moment, the endangered ally is the island republic of Palau, and just this summer PBS aired a report, titled Paradise Lost, calling attention to the potential of climate change to inundate and eliminate Palau and its Pacific neighbors.
An archipelago of 300 islands lying in the Philippine Sea north of Australia, with a total area of only 459 square miles, or, one for every Palauan (Israel, by comparison, has 21,000 square miles), Palau more than makes up for its diminutive size with its consistent support of Israel in world forums. Although all of Palau cannot scrape up even a minyan (a quorum of 10 Jews), its ambassador to the United Nations since 2004, Stuart Beck, is Jewish, as is Larry Miller, who served for 14 years as an associate justice of Palau’s Supreme Court. Somehow, Palau also produced two cyclists who competed in the 2009 Maccabiah Games. Read the rest of this entry…
Executives and Entrepreneurs Offer Insight to Israel’s Economic Success at Sy Syms Event
The line is nearly as old as the State of Israel itself: How do you make a small fortune in Israel? Start with a big one.
However today, in an era of widespread global recession, Israel’s soaring economy is no joke. With a low unemployment rate, 10 times more companies being created per capita than the United States, and more businesses traded on NASDAQ stock exchange than any country except the United States and China, Israel offers more opportunities to make a small fortune—or a big one—than ever before. At an October 24 event presented by Yeshiva University’s Sy Syms School of Business titled “Understanding Israeli Entrepreneurial Success,” veteran Israeli CEOs Jonathan Medved and Nadav Kidron offered American Jews an updated perspective on their homeland.
“We see Israel as a place we go to be inspired, to pursue spiritual opportunities we may not find elsewhere,” said Charlie Harary, clinical professor of management and entrepreneurship at Sy Syms and director of the school’s new Leading with Meaning initiative, which organized the event. “Few of us really understand that Israel also plays a big role in the world’s economy.” Read the rest of this entry…
Led by Yeshiva University, High School Students Head to D.C. on Israel Lobbying Mission
More than 100 high school students headed to Capitol Hill on October 15 to lobby on behalf of Israel. The mission, organized by Yeshiva University, was directed by Matthew Schwartz, YU’s assistant director of recruitment and high school programming, and Ethan Wasserman, last year’s president of YUPAC (Yeshiva University Political Awareness Club) and a current YU presidential fellow.
Cardozo Law to Oversee English Translations of Key Opinions of the Supreme Court of Israel
Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law will take over responsibility for translating significant cases of the Supreme Court of Israel into English.
In recognition of Cardozo’s programs in international constitutional law and in Jewish legal studies, the Friends of the Library of the Supreme Court of Israel signed a memorandum of understanding with Cardozo on October 18, 2012, transferring authority and funding for the project to the school. The opinions of the Israeli Supreme Court are of significant influence to the development of law in other countries. United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has said, “The Supreme Court of Israel is one of the world’s great legal institutions. Its work is of increasing value to constitutional scholars throughout the world.”
Peter Fishbein, special counsel, Kaye Scholer; Eliezer Rivlin, former deputy president of the Supreme Court of Israel and visiting professor at Cardozo; Asher Dan Grunis, president of the Supreme Court of Israel; Cardozo Dean Matthew Diller; Judge Jon O. Newman, US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; and Cardozo Vice Dean Edward Stein.
The Friends of the Library of the Supreme Court of Israel was formed in the 1990s as a non-profit corporation based in the United States, whose mission is to work closely with the Supreme Court of Israel to make the court’s opinions readily available in English. Legal translators in Israel work on translations that are made available online and in published volumes by the organization. Read the rest of this entry…
