Kol Torah

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Kol Torah is a yeshiva in the Bayit Vegan area of Jerusalem, Israel. It was founded in 1939 by Rabbi Yechiel Michel Schlesinger (1898-1948) and Rabbi Boruch Kundstadt, both from Germany. It was the first mainstream Haredi yeshiva to teach in Hebrew, as opposed to Yiddish, as was accepted at the time. This innovation had the crucial support of the Chazon Ish.

After Rabbi Schlesinger's death in 1949, Kol Torah was headed by the famous Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach until his death in 1995. Currently Rabbi Moshe Yehuda Schlesinger, eldest son of the founder, is the Rosh yeshiva. Kol Torah currently has a student body of over 1,000.

Many of Orthodox Judaism's most illustrious contemporary rabbinical figures are Kol Torah alumni. The staff included well known and highly regarded people, such as the late Rabbis Dovid Hecksher, Yosef Yehuda Reiner, Rav Yehoshua Neuwirth (author of Shemiras Shabbos KeHilchasa) and Shimon Moshe Diskin (1932-1999).

Kol Torah is famous for its high standards in Talmudic teaching and quality of students, who are recognised as being some of the foremost Talmudists in the world.

Rabbi Yeshaya Portnoy is dean of the American program.