Highlights of ’21-’22: A Year of Fresh Energy and Increased Momentum

June 1, 2022

Building on last year’s momentum and unparalleled success, we have brought vigor and unwavering commitment to this current year, 2021-2022, to fully actualize our new vision, which we have concretized in a fresh, dynamic logo and look, soon-to-be released website, and a clearly articulated statement:

YCT seeks to create a spiritually vibrant and intellectually open
Orthodox community whose Torah radiates outwards
to help transform the entire Jewish world.

You, our cherished partners, have provided the fuel for our success and we are so grateful. We are excited to share with you some highlights from the year:

Institutional Expansion and New Initiatives

  • YCT Israel. We are now on 2 continents! RIKMAH, our oversubscribed program for Israeli rabbinic leadership training, has completed its 3rd year, claiming 36 highly sought-after rabbanim and rabbaniyot in key leadership positions in Israel.
  • Led by Rabbi Mike Schultz (’08), Livyat Chen, YCT’s Israel Center for Pastoral Counseling trained its inaugural cohort of fellows, men and women serving in clergy positions in Israel.
  • Our Kollel for Contemporary Halakhic Studies is training the next generation of poskim and poskot (halakhic decisors). Last summer’s learning was devoted to disabilities and this summer’s topic is aging and elder adults.
  • YCT and Eshel have embarked on an exciting partnership to launch communal initiatives to help create Orthodox communities which are maximally welcoming to LGBTQ+ individuals and their families.
  • New board chair, Steven Laufer, has brought real wisdom and professionalism to our governance. We have welcomed 5 new and diverse board members hailing from New York, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and Montreal.
  • Our new initiatives have translated into a healthy increase in our budget, and fundraising continues to be strong.
  • We received a new $1,000,000 grant as an investment in our expansion, our new initiatives, and our continued impact on the Jewish community.

Our Rabbis: Making Headlines and Making History

  • Rabbi Chai Posner (’10) was unanimously chosen as Senior Rabbi of Congregation Beth Tfiloh, the largest Modern Orthodox synagogue in the nation, with a membership of more than 1,200 families and individuals.
  • UCLA Hillel Director Rabbi Aaron Lerner (’13) fights anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism through groundbreaking Fact Finders mission to Israel for Jewish and non-Jewish student leaders on 80 campuses nationwide.
  • Through Skokie Valley Agudath Jacobs’s special initiative, Solu, a community outreach partnership between his synagogue and the Bright Star Church in Chicago, Rabbi Ari Hart (‘12) builds bridges and fights anti-Semitism.
  • Rabbi Noah Aronin (’19), following our program on the first-ever English-language Megilah, commissioned an English-language megillah, which benefited hundreds of members of his Hebrew Home at Riverdale community.

Thank you for supporting and partnering with us. Together, we are having a transformative impact on the Orthodox community and on Klal Yisrael.

With God’s help – and yours! – we will continue to go from strength to strength. And don’t forget to stay tuned for the launch of our new website this fall.

Invest in Our Mission
yct starburst logo On the left half of the image is a circular radius of 54 circles moving out from the center. 27of the circles are radiating outward directly from the middle by attached lines (one per circle). All of the circles in the radius vary in size from significantly smaller to slightly larger then the average circle in the image. The center of the symbol and where the circles are radiating out from is a empty space in the shape of an implied circle (to match the shape of the radius but much smaller). The circles and lines fade in color from indigo blue on the top left, they then become a dark bluish-purple followed by a brighter indigo purple on the middle right and then a light blue at the upper right. The light blue section is disconnected and further towards the top right corner away from the rest of the image. There are 3 circles with attached lines in that corner and the two closest to the corner have there lines overlapping. The rest of the radius is made up of a repeating pattern of circles with 3 circles with attached lines followed by a larger line connected to a circle touching the edge of the radius. This pattern repeats 5 times and ends with the disconnected section that is then followed by one short line attached to a circle and one long one. On the right half of the image in indigo blue bubble letters are the letters YCT. Below YCT are light blue block letters that say VIBRANT TORAH LEADERSHIP followed by ישיבת חובבי תורה underneath in indigo blue block letters. The background of the whole image is white.Micah Philanthropies Invests $1 Million in Yeshivat Chovevei Torah
Photograph of Rabbi Haggai Resnikoff. Image of a man from the upper chest and upwards, his body is angled to the right away from the camera but with his head facing the viewer. He has a tan skin-tone, a wide toothy smile and dark eyes. His hair is brown, straight and close cropped at the sides and the top of his head appears mostly bare, he has stubble in the facial hair regions. He is wearing rectangular, wire-frame glasses, a dark brown suit and a white button-down shirt. He is also wearing a dark grey-blue knitted keepah with black rectangular patterns and a caramel brown tie with intricate circular patterns. The background is blurry and is of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale's aron cover. It is a navy blue fabric with various designs on different colored cloth squares. The designs are hard to make out but from left to right the top row is yellow, orange, lime green, dusty brown, the second row is, sandy, purple, red, orange, the third row is, pink, orange, lime green, purple and the last visible square on the bottom right it pink.Danger! Climate Crisis Ahead: An Executive Summary

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