Mesivta Tiferes Yisroel
Originally intended as a branch of the Rabbinical Seminary of America known as the Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim, (located in Queens, New York), it has evolved under the leadership of Rabbi Tzvi Turk (b. 1951?) into an established traditional yeshiva.
It is primarily an American, Lithuanian-style Talmudic Haredi Judaism but non-Hasidic yeshiva.
Though it continues to retain strong ties with its parent institution (the Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim), it is widely seen as a non-conforming affiliate. It currently has over one hundred students on the high school level and about twenty at the post-high school Beth midrash level. Many of the latter will continue on a rigidly determined curriculum, eventually seeking rabbinical ordination through Chofetz Chaim or increasingly through other rabbinical schools.
Founding
Rabbi David Harris had already had a long and distinguished career as an educator in the Chofetz Chaim system (he founded the Talmudic Institute of Upstate New York(TIUNY), its Rochester affiliate and, later, was principal and a 12th grade teacher in its flagship high school when the order came from Rabbi Alter Chanoch Henoch Leibowitz to set up an affiliated school in the ultra-Orthodox stronghold of Brooklyn.
This move represented a major break from the typical Chofetz Chaim modus operandi, which tends to concentrate on areas not containing a strong Orthodox educational system. Rabbis like Harris and Turk, have traditionally been Jewish youngsters coming from more assimilated Orthodox communities (Harris is from Scranton, Pennsylvania, Turk from West Orange, New Jersey) and would likely have had lay careers if not for the influence of the yeshiva on their won lives. (Both were graduates of Chofetz Chaim's flagship, on-campus high school, and were persuaded to continue, as did much of the contemporary leadership.)
However, Brooklyn is a bastion of more traditional institutions such as Yeshiva Chaim Berlin and Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, and thus, for the first time, RSA would have to compete for a more committed student population and present its ideology as a coherent and compelling alternative.
The school opened up in the basement of an Modern Orthodox Judaism synagogue (Young Israel of Ave. K) with one ninth grade class and two elementary school classes, with about sixty students in all. Adding a class each year to both the high school and primary school, it soon outgrew its cramped quarters and moved into a new building in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn in the Fall of 1991. Property was bought in the surrounding area and a major wing was added in the Fall of 1998. By that time, the elementary school had exceeded 400 children, the high school had about 100 students, and its newly added Beit Midrash program, although fluctuating from year to year, attracted a dozen or two students. Its elementary school is known as Yeshiva Tiferes Yisroel
Schooling
The Orthodox population of the Flatbush section of Brooklyn is paradoxical in many ways. David Berger, a Modern Orthodox scholar and professor of history at CUNY and Yeshiva University, once proposed naming the denomination representing the clientele of the local yeshivas as "Proud of their secular education but opposed to it" Orthodoxy. There is a very large segment of the population that is highly educated and/or successful in their careers. However, many, for various reasons, mostly having to do with perceived spiritual deficiencies and presence of bad influences, shun the local Modern Orthodox high schools, such as Yeshiva of Flatbush, Yeshiva University High School for Boys (MSTA/MTA), and the Rambam Mesivta. It was precisely this population that MTY was most successful in recruiting.
It soon gained a reputation as having "good secular studies," primarily because of their attitude, in the words of the rabbis: "Once you're spending time on it, you may as well learn something." Many parents who would have otherwise sent their children to alternate yeshivas, were attracted by this compromise because of their general positive view of secular learning- and MTY, prima facie , offered a very strong religious environment.
The yeshiva gained a strong niche in the community as a school that was dedicated to full-time study of Torah and Talmud while simultaneously adopting its parent institution's tolerance for Americanization to a degree greater than typical of Haredi Judaism yeshivas. In its relatively short existence, it has had students pass who appear to be on the fast track to great accomplishment in the world of yeshiva studies, the sphere of career accomplishment, and, on rare occasions, the academic world, though the administration makes it abundantly clear that the latter two (especially the last one) are inferior to the first. The attitude towards those that do not commit to the rabbinate, or at least an extensive post high school course of study dedicated exclusively to Talmud study, has been in flux since the administration change of '97-'98.
This changing attitude has engendered criticism within the very Brooklyn community that it resides. While the Yeshiva used to seek a certain type of student (perhaps one that was slightly more secular than Yeshiva Torah Vodaas and Yeshiva Torah Temima), it has since changed and is targeting a more religious element. With this change in focus and a "holier-than-thou" attitude, it has created some ill-will within the very community that assisted it in its swift rise.
Daily program
A typical day for a student in MTY is as follows:
- Morning prayers begin at 7:40 AM with a strict check of attendance. The penalty for tardiness was detention.
- Prayers usually conclude around 8:30 AM and are followed by breakfast until 9 AM.
- The general schedule is about an hour of Jewish Law and Ethics (usually an intensive study of a 19th century text such as Rabbi Moshe Chayyim Luzzatto's "Path of the Just"), followed by about 2.5 hours of Talmud.
- Lunch is for about an hour, and one will commonly find students playing with great gusto, energy, and, on not-such-rare occasions, acerbity on the basketball courts.
- The students spend about another 1.5 hours on a second round of Talmud (now more breadth oriented than depth oriented) and end with the standard Jewish curriculum with about 45 minutes of Biblical commentaries (concentrating on 11th-13th century commentators).
- It is 2:45 and the entire school now joins for the afternoon prayers.
- Students take the course load mandated by New York State for its Regents diploma, and students take a total of ten Regents' examinations during their four year study. Especially in the first two years, there can be some very demanding combinations of teachers and courses.
- 6:30 PM (3.5 hours a day of secular studies, as compared to a public school's six and a Modern Orthodox day school like MSTA's 4.5), students stay as late as 9PM from two to four times a week for a supplemental Talmud study session.
- On Sunday, there is a regular schedule until 3PM (the day ends after afternoon prayers).
Faculty-student relationships
One of the factors that has been cited by many MTY graduates as what makes this institution unique is the close ties the administration and higher-ranked Jewish Studies faculty have with the students (as opposed to the secular studies faculty, who are discouraged from forming bonds with students, and the adjunct Jewish Studies faculty, who, teaching disciplines less in vogue than Talmud, didn't really have enough time or "pull" to form relationships). Students have cited the willingness of some of MTY's senior rabbis (such as Rabbis Harris, Turk, and Yehuda Jacobson, dean of MTY's primary school satellite) to learn personally with individual students. Although such a relationship is usually limited to the brightest and most motivated students, the general perception that rabbis "know your name and a good deal more than that" has proven attractive to many potential students. Class sizes are relatively small (20-25), and RSA in general encourages a more interactive style of learning, often leading to many close relationships between students and Rebbeim (as students call their Jewish Studies teachers- all of whom are male and ordained rabbis- most within the RSA system).
Codes of conduct
On the first day of classes each year, it is customary for a senior rabbi (it was generally Rabbi Harris until his departure) to introduce students to the school and lay out some of the key rules and regulations governing student conduct. In the past, students were told that the two direct routes to expulsion were "going to movies" and "talking to girls." To those who did not engage in these activities, it is difficult to say with what degree of rigidity these edicts were applied in practice.
Socializing by students
The issue of communication between the sexes looms large in the "Yeshiva" Orthodox community. As evidenced by the threat of expulsion, all social (i.e. non-family) encounters with the opposite sex are banned at MTY. Indeed, Rabbi Henoch Leibowitz, head rabbi of the RSA network, once came to MTY and expounded for some time on the ills of socializing. Nonetheless, it is known that some students have, in fact, initiated and maintained contact with Orthodox young women. Such rendezvous are often facilitated by and sometimes restricted to the domain of the Internet, although genuine, real-life relationships have been known to occur. Still, the administration tries to curtail all opportunities for social contact between the sexes, often by prohibiting the patronization of specific off-campus establishments at certain times when young Orthodox women are known to congregate there.
Dress code
The MTY dress code is known for deviating slightly from the traditional garb of the yeshiva student -- a white dress shirt and dark (usually black) slacks. In the words of Rabbi Harris, students were expected to conform to a "conservatively elegant" standard. In practice, this seems to translate to neutrally-colored button-down shirts and casual pants. Shirts must be tucked in while inside the school building, and those who are negligent in this respect can be fined.
The size and composition of students' yarmulkes are strictly regulated. In the late 1990's, the minimum yarmulke diameter was set at seven inches. Yarmulkes are implicitly required to be made of black velvet. Other materials, such as suede, are seen as being "too modern" for the school's religious outlook. Knitted yarmulkes ("kipot serugot") are absolutely unacceptable, as they imply allegiance to the Mizrachi school of thought.
Students are required to wear fedorass and blazers to all prayer sessions.
Extracurricular activities
(To be added)
Metamorphosis
Much of the goings-on in MTY must be seen in the light that it is part of the large and organic Chofetz Chaim system, and must respond to changes within the larger organism. Chofetz Chaim is headed by Rabbi Henoch Leibowitz, and as he had advanced in age, the manifestations of his gradually encroaching retirement have cause major ripples throughout his entire educational empire. The most drastic effect this had on MTY was when, in April 1997, Rabbi David Harris announced that he had been summoned to RSA's flagship campus in Forest Hills, Queens (the institution has since moved to Kew Garden Hills Queens) to ease Rabbi Leibowitz's teaching and lecturing burden. Implicit, but left unsaid, was the clear indication that Harris was being anointed as Leibowitz's successor.
Student body
Traditionally, students who attended MTY came from a variety of backgrounds. A typical MTY class consisted of students primarily from Yeshiva Torah Temima and the Kaminetz yeshiva, and the latter, also known as Yeshiva Toras Emes Kaminetz, attracted a more mixed population (with regard to adherence to the norms of Yeshivishe Orthodox) . Recently, as a result of its new location closer to the homes of most MTY recruits, the number of Kaminetz students transferring to MTY has dwindled. Instead, MTY now recruits mostly Yeshiva Tiferes Yisroel (YTY) students and Yeshiva Torah Temima students. As the size of YTY's elementary school continues to grow, MTY has been attracting larger class sizes than ever before.
Israel
Over the past two decades, it has become customary for graduating students of Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva high schools to spend a year in Israel at a post high school Yeshiva institution. Until Fall 2000, many MTY graduates spent that year in Chofetz Chaim in Jerusalem, Israel. Chofetz Chaim in Jerusalem (CCJ) is an affiliate of RSA. It has traditionally attracted Chofetz Chaim students from all across North America. Its emphasis on Mussar resembles MTYs, and as such, the students adjust very readily and smoothly. In fact, as the proportion and number of MTY graduates remaining in the RSA educational framework increased through the 1990's, CCJ's student body boomed, to a peak of almost a hundred in 1999. However, in the course of the major reorganization of the global RSA structure over the past half-decade, in 2000, a popular rabbi, Binyomin Luban, was transferred from CCJ to the RSA branch (Yeshiva Toras Chaim - YTC) located in Miami, Florida. This transfer, which took place on the suggestion of Rabbi Leibowitz, would lead to many students from RSA branches heading to destinations other than CCJ - particularly YTC - for their post high school year. Two non-RSA institutions which have been beneficiaries of this trend, attracting a majority of MTY students heading to Israel in some years, are Yeshiva Medrash Shmuel, headed by a student of the late Rabbi Eliezer M.M. Shach and Yeshiva Toras Moshe, headed by one of the most stridently right-wing students of Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik.
College
MTY's official policy about colleges is that they are potentially hazardous, but sometimes necessary. The administration recognizes that a good deal of students expect to attend college for career purposes, but has stopped short of condoning the practice. Some students have gone on to receive degrees at various colleges and universities. Some have even pursued advanced degrees. According to one estimation there are currently 20 graduates in college and graduate school, with the majority of them attending Touro College or Brooklyn College, both in Brooklyn, NY. Touro seems to be the preferred choice of the administration, presumably because the college caters to Orthodox students and is gender-segregated. A very small number of graduates have also gone on to attend Yeshiva University in Manhattan. YU has in the past attracted MTY graduates and other students attending CCJ through its Joint Israel Program, which awards college credits for Talmud study in Israel. Although many students who go on to attend post-secondary institutions tend to be those who were considered "less successful" (i.e. not rabbinically inclined) during their time at MTY, others have proved to be exceptions to this rule.
Financial information
As of September 30, 2004, MTY had roughly $4.1 million in net assets. Its revenues, nearly $5.1 million, exceeded its expenses by over $500,000 for the preceding year. As mentioned above, MTY underwent two periods of large-scale building, from which it incurred over five and a half million dollars in costs. By rapidly paying its mortgages down, MTY now carries a mortgage of less than $1,500,000.
Yeshiva Tiferes Yisroel is known to be quite flexible in assessing tuition. With a student body size exceeding 800 students, its tuition revenue for the 2003-04 year only slightly exceeded $3.6 million. In all likelihood, average tuition per student is well under $4000. A likely explanation for MTY's low per-student costs is its low costs. For example, MTY's reported accounting expenses are about a fifth of TIUNY's. The school claimed about $27,000 in fund raising expenses for raising over $783,000 from the public. MTY serves two or three meals daily to the entire school, costing the school over $150,000 annually. (This figure excludes the salaries and benefits of kitchen staff, part of MTY's $3,500,000 payroll.)
In the same year, MTY engaged in no lobbying, and less than 3% of its revenue was derived from sources other than contributions, gifts, grants (including roughly $83,000 in government contributions), and program service revenue. The school owns three nearby properties, from which it has collected about $50,000 a year. (Those properties double as basement dormitories for the portion of MTY's student body who have come from far and wide, as well as those undergraduate students who would like to live near the study hall.) These properties cost MTY over a million dollars. It also owns less than $200,000 in investments (probably contributed), from which it has had uneven returns.
MTY's relatively low ratio of public support to tuition (in comparison to other Jewish day schools, and particularly to other Chofetz Chaim branches), about one dollar to five collected from tuition, is primarily attributable to two factors: The wide range of comparable institutions with which MTY must compete for funds in its densely Orthodox environment, and the paucity of MTY graduates who have attained levels of financial success which would allow them to contribute measurably to MTY. This is partially due to the fact that no MTY alumnus today is older than thirty, and partially because, as noted above, MTY has discouraged its graduates from pursuing such interests. The rabbinic leadership of the school is, however, very grateful to those beneficent donors who have aided the school in achieving its mission of providing thousands of students a Jewish education over the past decade and a half, an endeavor which all acknowledge is dear to MTY's administration's hearts. Its level of public support has noticably grown in the recent past.
The president of MTY and its affiliated elementary school is Irving Langer, a proprietor of a nearby real estate management and sales firm . Mr. Langer, a Brooklyn expatriate who now lives in the upscale Five Towns, has also given substantial donations to other Orthodox charitable causes, including Ohel Children's Home and the Rabbinical Seminary of America. In the past, MTY has also received substantial pecuniary support from Dr. Ira Kukin, a Livingston, New Jersey chemist and entrepeneur. Dr. Kukin is also a major funder of Yeshiva University, its component schools, and the UJA Metrowest.
