Media Room
Nishmat Graduates Five New North American Yoatzot

Please join us to mark a historic moment for Jewish life, as our U.S. Yoatzot Halacha Graduate! Sunday, October 27, 2013, at Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue in Manhattan, at 11:30 AM! R.S.V.P to [email protected]!

In a historic occasion, the first five Yoatzot Halacha (Women Consultants in Jewish Law) educated in the United States were certified by rabbinic authorities in Israel in August. The women scholars are graduates of the two-year Yoetzot Halacha/U.S. Fellowship Program at Nishmat’s Miriam Glaubach Center in New York, a project of Nishmat, The Jeanie Schottenstein Center for Advanced Torah Study for Women in Israel.

Three Israel-educated Yoatzot Halacha, Bracha Rutner, Shoshana Samuels and Sara Cheses are already employed at Riverdale Jewish Center (NY); Rinat Yisrael and Netivot Shalom (Teaneck); Kesher Synagogue(Tenafly, NJ); Beth Jacob, Young Israel of Century City, B'nai David, and YULA (Los Angeles); and Yale University (CT). Synagogues, schools and Jewish communities are competing to hire the five new American-educated Yoatzot. Here’s where you will find them:

Dena Block, Yoetzet Halacha at Great Neck Synagogue (NY) and at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun (CKJ) and Mt. Sinai Jewish Center in Manhattan (NY), teaches Talmud and U.S. History at Ma'ayanot Yeshiva High School in Teaneck (NJ), where she also directs student programming.

Professor Nechama Price is Instructor in Bible and Judaic Studies at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women. She teaches advanced courses in Jewish Family Law.

Lisa Septimus, newly appointed Yoetzet Halacha of the Five Towns (NY), is also Judaic Studies Instructor, Dean and Director of Special Programs at North Shore Hebrew Academy High School (Great Neck, NY) and Rebbetzin of Young Israel of North Woodmere.