Kol Torah

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Kol Torah is a yeshiva in the Bayit Vegan area of Jerusalem, Israel founded in 1939. It is famous for its high standards in Talmudic teaching and quality of students, who are recognised as being some of the foremost Talmudists in the world.

Contents 1 Early Years 2 Present 3 Famous Teachers 4 Famous Alumni 5 External links

[edit] Early Years

Yeshivah Kol Torah was founded in 1939 by Rabbi Yechiel Michel Schlesinger (1898-1948), born in Hamburg, Germany and Rabbi Boruch Kunstadt, a Dayan (Rabbinic Judge) from Fulda, Germany. It was the first mainstream Haredi yeshiva to teach in Hebrew, as opposed to Yiddish, as was accepted at the time. This innovation had the crucial support of the Chazon Ish. After Rabbi Schlesinger's death in 1949, Kol Torah was headed by the famous Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach until his death in 1995.

[edit] Present

Currently Rabbi Moshe Yehuda Schlesinger, eldest son of the founder, is serving as Rosh yeshiva. Kol Torah currently has a student body of over 1,000. Rabbi Yeshaya Portnoy (former Chavrusa of the famed Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Soloveitchik) is dean of the American program.

[edit] Famous Teachers

The staff has always included well known and highly regarded scholars as its teachers:

• Rabbi Shimon Moshe Diskin (1932-1999)
• Rabbi Dovid Hecksher (1943-1997)
• Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth (author of Shemiras Shabbos Kehilchosoh, b.1927)
• Rabbi Yosef Yehuda Reiner
• Rabbi Sholom Povarsky
• Rabbi Boruch Shmuel Deutsch (chief disciple of Rabbi Elazar Shach)
• Rabbi Avrohom Erlanger (author of the famous "Birkas Avrohom" books)
• Rabbi Gavriel Bollag (member of the Mir Shanghai Yeshiva, 1911-2007)
• Rabbi Yitzchok Yerucham Bordiansky (son in law of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach.

[edit] Famous Alumni

Many of Orthodox Judaism's most illustrious contemporary rabbinical figures are Kol Torah alumni:

• Rabbi Pinchas Biberfeld (1915-1999), Chief Rabbi of Munich
• Rabbi Israel Meir Lau (b. 1937), Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel (1993-2003)
• Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth (b.1927), author of Shemiras Shabbos KeHilchasa
• Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Sites of Israel
• Rabbi Shmuel Reiner (b. 1954), established Yeshivat Maale Gilbon
• Rabbi Nissan Kaplin, one of the head lecturers at Mir Yeshiva, Jerusalem.
• Rabbi Ephraim Klyne, dean of Torah Temimah School, London.

[edit] External links

• KOL TORAH RABBINICAL COLLEGE.