page_title: Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary / History
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor
context_page_description: Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, founded in 1896, is the rabbinical seminary of Yeshiva University. It is located along Amsterdam Avenue in New York City, in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan.
  The school's Hebrew name is Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchok Elchonon, after Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor, who had died that year. The Hebrew name of the Rabbinic school appears on the seals of all affiliates of Yeshiva University, in Hebrew letters. The seminary is often referred to by its English acronym of RIETS.
context_section_description: The first Jewish schools in New York were El Hayyim and Rabbi Elnathan's, on the lower East Side.
  In 1896, several New York and Philadelphia rabbis agreed that a rabbinical seminary based on the traditional European Yeshiva viewpoint was needed to produce American rabbis who were fully committed to what would come to be called Orthodox Judaism. There were only two rabbinical seminaries in the United States. Hebrew Union College followed Reform Judaism, and was unacceptable to traditional rabbis and other Jews. The other was the Jewish Theological Seminary, which was small, financially precarious, and while nominally traditional, had roots in the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, whose fidelity to tradition was questionable.
  Rabbi Bernard L. Levinthal and other leading traditional (Orthodox) rabbis of the day founded the school, then known as the Rabbinical College of America (not related to the current institution of that name).
  In 1915, it merged with an elementary school, the Eitz Chaim Yeshiva, changed its name to RIETS, and appointed Rabbi Dr. Bernard Revel to head the combined school. In 1916, he expanded its offerings to include a high school, the Talmudical Academy. In the late 1920s, the institution began a building campaign of US$5 million, announcing an institution called the "Yeshiva of America," later the "Yeshiva College of America," before finally settling simply on Yeshiva College. In 1926, it bought a three-block site in Washington Heights, and built its first building, and moved its operation there. As of 2018, that building continues to house Yeshiva University's affiliated high school, but all other operations have moved to other buildings on the expanded campus surrounding it.
  The high school, previously integral to RIETS, became a separate entity, and RIETS became exclusively a college-level program, including granting of degrees via smichah. Secular studies were added, with the RIETS rosh yeshiva (head of school) also serving as president of the college secular academic programs. For example, Rabbi Revel was the official rosh yeshiva and college president even though greater Talmudic scholars were on faculty, notably Rabbi Moshe Soloveichik, who served as co-head of RIETS.  This arrangement continued into the 1940s. However, the second president, Rabbi Samuel Belkin, legally separated the two institutions in order to obtain United States government funding and research grants for a variety of YU's secular departments.  In Rabbi Belkin's view, the modern understanding of the separation of church and state in the United States would have forced YU to either forgo federal grants (a major source of funding for all universities) and stagnate, or to alter the religious character of RIETS.
  The split was strongly opposed by RIETS's leading scholar Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who saw it as the antithesis of the school's guiding philosophy. Rabbi Belkin prevailed and, following the split, he remained both the official rosh yeshiva of RIETS and president of Yeshiva University. Despite the separation, the identities have continued to be blended. Both the religious seminary and the college undergraduate Talmudic department are called RIETS, and have the same faculty and students.
  With the 2003 appointment of Richard Joel, a layman, as president of Yeshiva University, the dual role had to end. Joel's predecessor, Rabbi Norman Lamm, continued as the official rosh yeshiva of RIETS, with Richard Joel being the "Chief Executive", responsible for fund-raising and administrative issues.
  Rabbi Menachem Penner is the Dean of RIETS, a position he began July 1, 2013, after Rabbi Yona Reiss's resignation.  Before taking over as dean in 2013, Penner had been the assistant dean of RIETS.
  At the time of Rabbi Yona Reiss' appointment, RIETS absorbed the academic administration of the Undergraduate Torah Studies programs affiliated with Yeshiva College and Sy Syms School of Business on the Wilf Campus (Mazer Yeshiva Program, Stone Beit Midrash Program, Isaac Breuer College, and the James Striar School).
caption: Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor, namesake of the Seminary
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