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Jewish Link: Seven Yoatzot Halacha to Graduate from Nishmat’s American Program

by Elizabeth Kratz, The Jewish Link, October 15, 2015

Nishmat’s Miriam Glaubach Center, a branch of the Jeanie Schottenstein Center for Advanced Torah Study for Women in Jerusalem, has a U.S. Yoatzot Halacha Fellows Program, which is hosted at Teaneck’s Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls. This month, the program is holding its second-ever graduation, certifying seven women who will join only 10 Nishmat-certified Yoatzot Halacha who are employed by synagogues in America, the first of whom, Bracha Rutner, was appointed in 2003.

“These are seven amazing, highly sensitive Orthodox leaders,” said Atara Eis, director of the U.S. program at Nishmat. “This is a fitting tribute to the Jewish community in Bergen County because they have raised such wonderful leaders.”

Virtually all of the 2015 graduates have strong connections to the Bergen County community, and they join two Yoatzot Halacha, Shoshana Samuels in Teaneck and Nechama Price from Englewood, who are serving as yoatzot here. Samuels studied at Nishmat in Jerusalem, while Price, as well as Dena Block, originally from Teaneck, and Tova Warburg Sinensky, originally from Englewood, were part of the first class of the U.S. program. There are now 100 Yoatzot Halacha currently certified by Nishmat since the inception of its Yoatzot Halacha Program in Israel in 1997.

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