| Rabbi Mendel Weinbach | |
|---|---|
| Rosh Yeshiva | |
Rabbi Mendel Weinbach in 2010 |
|
| Began | 1970 |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Poland |
| Spouse | Sylvie (Shaindel) Lamm |
| Children | 12 |
Mendel Weinbach (Hebrew: מנדל וינבך) is an Orthodox Jewish rabbi and one of the fathers of the modern-day baal teshuva movement in his capacity as co-founder and dean of Ohr Somayach Institutions, a Jerusalem-based educational network for young, non-Hasidic Jewish men. Since the yeshiva's founding in 1970, Rabbi Weinbach has taught, mentored and advised generations of students,[1] helping beginners develop their textual learning skills[2] and embrace an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle. He is a father figure to thousands, and actively participates in his students' weddings and the brissim and bar mitzvahs of their children.
Rabbi Weinbach is an erudite Torah scholar[2] and a sought-after lecturer for both men's and women's groups in Israel and abroad. He has written several books and many newspaper, magazine and online articles on Jewish thought and practice.
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Weinbach was born in Poland[3] and raised in Pittsburgh.[4] He received semicha at Yeshiva Torah Vodaas.[1]
He married Sylvie (Sheindel) Lamm (b. 1941), a Belgian war orphan who came to New York at the age of 5. She and her parents, Abraham Israel and Rachel Lamm, had been interned in the Mechelen transit camp in 1942. She had been liberated on 13 January 1944 and sent to a Jewish orphanage; her parents were deported to Auschwitz two days later. She was raised by her aunt and uncle in New York City.[5] The couple settled in Kiryat Mattersdorf in northern Jerusalem, where they raised their 12 children.
The 1960s and 1970s were a time of searching for meaning by Western-educated, college-age men and women. In 1970, Rabbis Noah Weinberg, Mendel Weinbach, Nota Schiller, and Yaakov Rosenberg founded Shema Yisrael Yeshiva to attract young Jewish men with little or no background in Jewish studies.[6][7] After a few years, Weinberg left the yeshiva over a difference in philosophy and founded Aish HaTorah in 1974.[7] Shema Yisrael subsequently changed its name to Ohr Somayach, after the commentary on the Mishneh Torah written by Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, the Ohr Somayach, in response to critics who contended that the name belonged to the entire Jewish people, not just one institution.[8]