| Yeshiva College of South Africa | |
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| Information | |
| Established | 1951; 74 years ago (1951) |
| Grades | Nursery - Grade 12 |
| Gender | Mixed (girls and boystaught separately in grades 7-12) |
| Age | 3 to 18 |
| Enrollment | c.1000 |
| Website | www |
TheYeshiva College of South Africa (Yeshivat Beit Yitzchak), commonly known asYeshiva College - and formerly known as YeshivatBnei Akiva - isSouth Africa’s largest religiousJewish Day School.The school is headed by Mr Rob Long[2] since 2018.
Yeshiva College was established in the beginning of 1951; it is located in theGlenhazel area ofJohannesburg,Gauteng, South Africa.
Throughout Yeshiva College's history, it has grow in numbers and stature. The school has around 1000 pupils, between the ages of 3 and 18. It consists of a nursery school (up to age 6), a coeducational primary school (grades 0-6), and separate boys' and girls' high schools (grade 7-12).
The school adopts aReligious Zionist andModern Orthodox philosophy. Throughout, pupils study a double curriculum, focusing onTorah study as well as secular studies; students ultimately sitting for theNational Senior Certificate (seeMatriculation in South Africa), where the school achieves competitively. Various sports and cultural activities are offered and encouraged.
The yeshiva was co-founded by Rabbi Michel Kossowsky, anEastern EuropeanTalmudic scholar who had settled in South Africa duringthe Holocaust, and Rabbi Joseph Bronner, an alumnus of theYeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn, New York, who had settled in South Africa afterWorld War II and was active in the business world.
The yeshiva was named for Rabbi Kossowsky's father, Rabbi Yitzchak Kossowsky, who had preceded him and had served as one of the heads of Johannesburg'sBeth Din ("religious court".)
The first full-time instructor of Talmud at the yeshiva was Rabbi David Sanders (rabbi), who was brought out from theTelz yeshiva in the United States to teach the young students Talmud in the traditional style of theLithuanian yeshivas.
Sanders helped to bring RabbiAvraham Tanzer, also an alumnus of the Telz, to teach at the yeshiva. Eventually Rabbi Tanzer was appointed theRosh yeshivah ("dean") of the school, a position which he retained until his death in 2020.[1]
Rabbi Tanzer, in turn, brought out RabbiAzriel Goldfein[2] (again, a fellow Telz yeshiva alumnus) to be a co-Rosh yeshiva; Rabbi Goldfein eventually left to establish theYeshivah Gedolah of Johannesburg. In the 1980s RabbiAharon Pfeuffer similarly taught at the school.
The staff today includes Rabbanim from Israeli, American and South African yeshivot, and graduates of severalseminaries,and retains its close association with theBnei Akiva youth movement, extending toMizrachi, and its localKollel Bet Mordechai.
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