Hadar Hatorah

Yeshiva Hadar Hatorah is one of the world's first baal teshuva yeshivas for men rediscovering their Jewish roots.

History

[
Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson giving a class in Hadar Hatorah in 1962] It was founded in 1962 by Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson, a Chabad activist, to accommodate baal teshuvas interested in full-time study in a traditional yeshiva environment.

Throughout its existence, the yeshiva has geared itself to provide its students with a firm background in Judaism, Torah study, prayer, Jewish law, Hasidic teachings and Jewish values.

Among Hadar Hatorah's alumni are professors, doctors, lawyers, while others went on to study for semicha to become rabbi's or shluchim ("emissaries") to Jewish communities around the world.

Many of its students are still in the midst of completing college or university degrees and take a leave of absence to come to yeshivah. The administration provides transfer of college credits to those schools the students had been attending, thereby giving the students the ability to study full time.

It is located in the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic community of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, New York, where many of its residents are alumni of the yeshiva. It is located on Eastern Parkway near the Jewish Children's Museum and the central Lubavitch synagogue 770 Eastern Parkway. The yeshiva is a branch of the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education. Rabbi Jacob J. Hecht, dean of the NCFJE, played a pivotal role in the yeshiva's development and was its dean. The yeshiva was later renamed "Yeshivas Kol Yaakov Yehudah - Hadar Hatorah" upon his death, in recognition of his efforts and devotion to the yeshiva and its students.

Faculty

The Rosh Yeshiva is Rabbi Yaakov Goldberg, who was handpicked by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, to lead the yeshiva. Serving as a mashpia ("spiritual mentor") is Rabbi Yosef Boruch Wircberg, an alumnus of Hadar Hatorah and having studied for many years in Chabad yeshivas, he teaches several classes a day. Rabbi Shea Hecht is the Executive Director.

Notable alumni

The reggae singer Matisyahu, and Jason Bedrick member of the New Hampshire state legislature, are alumni of this school.

ee also

*Yeshiva
*Baal teshuva
*Chabad Lubavitch

External links

* [http://www.hadarhatorah.org/ Hadar Hatorah Yeshiva website]
* [http://www.hadarhatorah.org/pages/publications.php Published Reunion Journals by the Yeshiva]
* [http://www.chabadnews.us/Old%20Aricles/AT%2000014.htm Beginning history of Hadar Hatorah]
* [http://www.jewishaudio.org/hadar-hatorah/ Online audio library of classes given at Hadar Hatorah]