The Schechter Institutes

NOW OPEN NOW OPEN NOW OPEN
Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies offers English Courses in Jewish History; Bible; Midrash and Jewish Literature (beginning in October 2026) - if you are abroad or in Israel!!!

🌞Daytime in Israel
- Jewish Women's👩🏻‍🏫 Literary Voices with Dr. Shana R. Mauer (zoom)
- Unraveling the Bible 📖 with Esther Lapian (in person)
🌃Evenings in Israel
- King David 👑in Bible & Midrash with Rabbi Vernon Kurtz (zoom)
- Interfaith Ethics - Rabbinic Teachings ✡️& Sermon on the Mount✝️ with Rabbi Vernon Kurtz (zoom)
- Song of Songs - Biblical Visions of Love 🫶🏽with Rabbi Benjy Segal (zoom)
- Evil & Suffering in Jewish Thought 💭with Dr. Elliot Malamet (zoom)

SIGN UP TODAY👍🏽 https://schechter.edu/community-learning/
for more information!!!

Community Courses - The Schechter Institutes An updated list of enrichment community learning opportunities including lectures and courses that are offered throughout the year.

The youth and children at Camp Ramah Yahad Ukraine (Рама Яхад) continue to enjoy their R&R - even as news in Ukraine remains difficult.

Finding their spirit in art, their capabilities in woodwork and their voices in singing and prayer, the campers (and their counselors and staff) are having a wonderful time

We also want to thank those who support camp like Maccabi USA and Olami with Masorti Ukraine - without their efforts camp could not be filled with all 165 campers and the 49 staff members.

So far a great summer! 🏊‍♀️

NEW AT SCHECHTER:

The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies is proud to announce an exciting new academic opportunity. Israel’s Council for Higher Education, the country’s higher education regulatory body, has approved an MA degree with a thesis at Schechter.

This new thesis option provides current Schechter students and those who have already graduated, with a direct pathway toward doctoral studies, enabling them to complete an MA with a thesis to continue their academic journey toward a PhD.

Responding to a long-standing request from our students, Schechter is pleased to offer the MA with thesis in four fields of study:
• Bible
• Rabbinic Literature
• Jewish Thought
• Jerusalem and Land of Israel Studies

This new option further strengthens Schechter’s commitment to academic excellence and provides our students with expanded opportunities to pursue advanced research in Jewish Studies.

*Awarding of the degree is subject to the approval by Israel’s Council for Higher Education.

For almost 60 years, the Schechter Institutes, in one form or another, has played an important role in the intellectual and Jewish life of Jerusalem. One should also note its influential position vis-a-vis the relationships between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora, too!

In all those years, an archiving of the institute and its earlier forms (when it was a branch of The Jewish Theological Seminary - JTS was never undertaken.....until now.

Shir Ben-Or, an experienced archivist who worked at the National Library of Israel, spent six months organizing the Schechter Archives, approximately 200 boxes, with input and guidance from Prof. David Golinkin. She scanned annual reports, historic documents and photos, and digitized old videos. She also labelled a huge number of old photos together with Prof. Golinkin and Gila Katz, who served as Director of Midreshet Ukraine for 25 years.

Ben-Or looked into every box, cranny, room, basement storage facility as well as the ever present bomb shelter(s) to find, catalogue and also digitize papers, memos, pictures, CD-ROMs, website materials, videos and even books.

The archive includes documents and photos beginning in 1984 when Schechter was first founded as the Seminary of Judaic Studies and, more recently, archival materials, photos, and videos of the four Schechter nonprofits.

Using the tools of an archivist - writing, cataloging and a mask covering her face against the dust and mildew - Ben-Or found records dating from the the 1960s/70s/80s and into the digital age.

She remarked that this job was different from others she held. "At Schechter I could ask a person who are these people in the pictures. Usually, as an archivist I arrive to find the people with all of the knowledge are no longer alive to answer my questions." She was able to call people into the office and work with them to put names and job titles to many a picture.

There is, of course, more work to be done in cataloguing boxes that were found during the last moments of her research.

We thank her very much for her efforts! We now have the basis to continue building the Schechter archives for current use and future historians.

Today, Israel's President Yitzhack יצחק הרצוג - Isaac Herzog received an honorary doctorate from The Jewish Theological Seminary - JTS. Chancellor Emeritus Prof. Shuly Rubin Schwartz physically granted the degree to President Herzog.

Schechter was well represented at the ceremony which took place in the President's Residence with Rabbi Matthew Berkowitz, President of the Schechter Institutes, Inc. and Rabbi Chaya Rowen Baker, Dean of the בית המדרש לרבנים ע"ש שכטר Schechter Rabbinical Seminary attending.

Members of Schechter's board, former faculty as well as (it must have been) a dozen rabbis ordained by Schechter attended the festive event including Rabbi Doron Rubin CEO of The Masorti Movement In Israel-התנועה המסורתית בישראל.

JTS has now granted two honarary degrees to the Herzog family. Yitzhack's father Chaim Herzog z'l, a former President of Israel and Israel Ambassador to the United Nations also received a degree from JTS. 💪

A Rabbi in the Rocky Mountains...

Rabbi Matthew Berkowitz, president of The Schechter Institutes, Inc. is in his second home teaching in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado.

Last week found him in Aspen...learning with the Wexner Heritage New Member Institute.

This is his 18th year teaching for NMI and 21st year teaching for Wexner Heritage!

This year, he taught a cohort of fellows hailing from Columbus OH.

On the menu was Matt's artistic recipe for teaching history, Jewish life and the arts using a megillah-style art project in which students cut and paste coloured paper on a long sheet representing events or religious items.

Producing this in the green trees, plants and grasses of the mountains adds a new dimension to Jewish learning.

The Final Test!

This sounds like a parable, a movie title, an eschatological experience, or a short story.

However, as we reach into August, this photo presents the final exam held at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies. Note how the students are separated in space.

Hours of class work combined with hours of reading, poring over texts or museum visits or field trips all culminate in the final exam in the quest to complete requirements for a Schechter MA degree.

This year over 70 people graduated from Schechter and we are already looking forward to the coming year which will begin in October, after the Jewish Holy Days.

What a joy when three rabbis of different generations find themselves together.

Pres. Emeritus Rabbi David Golinkin was visiting the / מדרשת חנתון Hannaton Educational Center- with his family and lo and behold who else was also there?

Rabbi Gustavo Gryncwajg (a Schechter Rabbinical Seminary 2014 graduate and the renovation architect for Schechter's Harvey L. Miller Family Library and Administration Building in Jerusalem) was also there for summer camp with his congregation's youth group: Kehila Masortit Ra'anana Amitai.

In addition, great things come in threes, the two met up with the head of the Hannaton Education center, Rabbi Yoav Ende (a 2008 Schechter Rabbinical Seminary graduate).

Summertime in Israel!