Home>>Rabbinic and Educator Programs>>Meorot Fellowship

For over 20 years, the Meorot Fellowship, a joint program of YCT and Yeshivat Maharat, has gathered exceptional college students to learn with distinguished academics, communal leaders, and rabbis.

Meorot helps these students grow into future Jewish spiritual and lay leaders through serious learning and honest discourse, establishing a cross-campus community of powerful student voices.

Monthly virtual sessions include presentations and shiurim followed by group discussions, emphasizing respect and tolerance as the cornerstones for healthy debate. These sessions are kicked off with a fall Shabbaton in New York and supplemented by regular (virtual) chevruta study.

Our topics touch on some of the most pressing issues of our day, including social justice, halakha and gender, and social justice. Popular sessions, given by graduates of YCT and Maharat, include “Gender in Jewish Thought and Law” with Rabbi Jeff Fox ; “Danger and Reasonability: Paskening Halakha for the Climate Crisis” with Rabbi Haggai Resnikoff and “Showing Up and Sitting Down: Centering Impacted Parties in Activist Work” with Maharat Rori Picker Neiss.

Fellows complete a meaningful capstone project that brings their learning back to campus, thus extending the impact of their experiences and may apply for funding through the Meorot Microgrant Program to advance their work on campus or in their communities.

To be considered for the Meorot Fellowship, students must be nominated by their Hillel professional/Jewish communal leader, complete an application, and be invited for a virtual interview. An annual cohort of student leaders is chosen based upon their proven campus leadership and interest in pursuing spiritual and/or lay leadership within the Jewish community. Applications are now closed.

The 2022-2023 sessions take place on Tuesdays, from 7:30-9pm Eastern, on October 25, December 13, January 31, February 21, March 21, April 18, May 16. The kick-off Shabbaton was held on October 28-30, 2022.

For more information, email meorot@yctorah.org.

Explore Our Programs

Semikha

Rikmah Students A black and white photographic image of two people, one masculine in appearance and the other feminine in appearance, both are smiling and facing directly at the camera from the middle of the image. Only the top half of these people are visible and the background is transparent. The woman is in front and to the right, she appears to be in her 30s-40s with a light skin tone. She has shoulder length dark hair, squarish glasses, a large, top-heavy, head-wrap, a light solid colored dress with puffy shoulders and a necklace made of large interlocking chain links. The man has a similar glasses, skin tone and seems to be a similar age to the woman. He has a plaid patterned shirt, a large white keepah that is barely visible from the camera angle, black hair which is short aside from a long pair of payote which go down to mid chest height and a beard that goes down to his collar bone and seems a little untidy, he also has a mustache.

Rikmah

YCT student learning Black and white photograph cropped of Rabbi Aaron Portman. Image of a man in grey scale with a transparent background. He has light skin, appears to be in his 30s, and can be seen from the chest up. He is hovering over a large open sefer, possibly Gemara, where the outside of the pages seems to be textured with blotches of color. He has thick, dark, short hair that is swept to the right, half closed eyes and a wide open mouthed smile. He is wearing a white keepah with a hair clip on the left, circular wire rim glasses, a ribbed dark sweater and a checkered button down shirt and a ring on his left ring finger. There is nothing else in the picture besides the transparent background so he appears to be floating in the air.

Beit Midrash

A blurry photo-realistic stock image called "bohemian-man-with-his-arms-crossed". Image of a man standing straight and directly facing the camera and visible from the waist up. The whole image is in grey-scale with a transparent background. He has a light skin-tone, a full-faced, bushy, dark, beard and mustache and short, wavy, dark hair. He seems to be smiling but his facial hair covers most of his mouth. He is wearing large, circular, black framed glasses, a mid-tone fedora with a woven checker pattern and a long sleeved comfy shirt with ribbed cuffs. He is also wearing a scarf wrapped twice around his neck with the ends not visible, the scarf has horizontal stripes going in a pattern from light to dark. His arms are crossed and he as a significant amount of hair on his fore-arms.

Meorot