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22 Adar II 5763 - March 26, 2003 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Jubilee For Yeshiva College of South Africa
by D. Saks

A Johannesburg school that took the lead in pioneering Torah education in South Africa, celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year. Yeshiva College, which began its existence as a yeshiva ketanoh offering part-time shiurim to a handful of interested teenagers, is now the largest religious day school system in the country, with over 800 pupils from junior school to graduation. In the course of the last half century, the institution has further been instrumental, directly or indirectly, in the emergence of a host of other Torah chinuch institutions, all of which have contributed to transforming the religious landscape in the city.

The story of Yeshiva College is in many ways the story of the growth of Judaism in Johannesburg. At the time of its establishment, the general level of religious observance was exceedingly low, and beyond a rudimentary period of pre-bar mitzvah instruction in the local chadorim, most Jews received minimal Jewish education. Dedication to the Zionist ideal was the dominant feature of the South African Jewish community at the time. As a result, traditional Jewish learning was widely regarded with suspicion, as representing a possible throwback to the discredited ghetto past. Ominously, the Reform movement established in 1933, was also experiencing modest but steady growth at this time, attracting a number of members of the community who were repelled by what they saw as hypocrisy within the Orthodox establishment for the failure of its nominal adherents to live up to its precepts.

The founders of Yeshiva College back then were realistic enough in the prevailing climate of ignorance and apathy not to set their initial goals too high. For the trickle of young talmidim who attended the original classes, this was a first-ever exposure to authentic Judaism, and it was important not to force the pace. The policy of Yeshiva College was always to attract all members of the community, regardless of their level of religious observance, in the hope of gradually bringing them closer to a Torah lifestyle.

With the passage of time, the levels of both learning and observance within the school have progressively been raised as Johannesburg Jewry as a whole has increased its commitment to Torah living.

Rabbi Michel Kossowsky, scion of an illustrious rabbinical family in Lithuania (he was related to HaRav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky), was the chief founder and first rosh yeshiva who, together with several local rabbonim, delivered the early shiurim. In 1954 Rabbi David Sanders, a talmid of the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland, was brought to South Africa by the Yeshiva. He served as Dean until 1962 and was its first full-time member of staff.

Gradually the institution, which converted itself into a high school combining limudei kodesh and secular courses in 1958, began to win wider recognition as an important part of the Jewish communal infrastructure. During the 1960s it steadily expanded, adding first a kindergarten, followed by two junior school branches and finally a girls' high school as well.

From the outset, a high proportion of the Yeshiva College graduates continued their studies in yeshivas overseas after graduating, and many of these subsequently returned to serve the community as rabbonim and teachers. This was an important development as previously the local community had been forced to import all its rabbinical leaders, mainly from England. In 1972, the school established a yeshiva gedolah, a facility for post-graduate learning that also provided a facility for training rabbonim locally.

The Yeshiva Gedolah is today an independent institution, still under the leadership of its founding Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Azriel Goldfein. Other Torah centers that have arisen as a result of previous initiatives by Yeshiva College include the Yeshiva Maharsha school and shul, and the Shaarei Torah, Hirsch Lyons and Torah Academy schools.

In 1995, Yeshiva College achieved international recognition when it was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for Torah education in the Diaspora. The prize was jointly awarded to the school and its long-serving rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Avraham Tanzer.

2003 also marks the fortieth anniversary of the arrival of Rabbi Tanzer, who replaced Rabbi Sanders at the beginning of 1963 and was appointed rosh yeshiva in 1966 following the untimely passing of Rabbi Kossowsky two years earlier. A talmid of such luminaries as Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Bloch, Rabbi Chaim Mordecai Katz and Rabbi Mordecai Gifter at the Telz Yeshiva, he had been personally recommended for the position by Rabbi Katz, his rosh yeshiva. His son Rabbi Dov Tanzer, who was appointed menahel of the school in 1993, enjoys a growing reputation as a halachic scholar. His sefer Yad Avrohom, a detailed analysis of every mishna in maseches Oholos in Seder Taharos, was greeted with international acclaim when it appeared last year.

 

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