page_title: Mendel Weinbach
section_title: Yeshivas Ohr Somayach
hierarchical_section_title: Mendel Weinbach / Teaching career / Yeshivas Ohr Somayach
caption_attribution_description: English: Ohr Somayach entrance
context_page_description: Chona Menachem Mendel Weinbach was an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, educator, author, and speaker. As the co-founder and dean of Ohr Somayach Institutions, a Jerusalem-based yeshiva for newly-observant Jewish men, he was considered one of the fathers of the modern-day baal teshuva movement.
context_section_description: In 1972 Weinbach and Rabbis Nota Schiller, Noah Weinberg, and Yaakov Rosenberg established Shema Yisrael Yeshiva to attract young, English-speaking Jewish men with little or no background in Jewish studies. After a few years, Weinberg left the yeshiva over a difference in philosophy and founded Aish HaTorah in 1974. Shema Yisrael subsequently changed its name to Ohr Somayach (after the commentary on the Mishneh Torah written by Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk), in response to critics who contended that the name Shema Yisrael belonged to the entire Jewish people rather than a single institution. Weinbach and Schiller continued on as rosh yeshivas, developing the program into a Talmud study program with the goal of facilitating the adoption of Orthodox practices among formerly secular Jewish students integrate into Orthodox Jewish communities. Other Torah scholars invited to serve as rosh yeshivas over the years included Rabbi Dov Schwartzman and Rabbi Aharon Feldman.
  Weinbach oversaw the growth of Ohr Somayach into different branches, beginning with the 1984 establishment of its Israeli division. Later branches were established in the United States, Canada, England, South Africa and Ukraine. Weinbach also oversaw the development of several successful kiruv initiatives, including the Jewish Learning Exchange (JLE), a summer learning course for young men from overseas; the Ohr Lagolah teacher-training program; and the Mentors Mission, which brings American Jews to Israeli for kiruv activities.
  Weinberg taught at Ohr Somayach from its founding in 1970 until his death in 2012.
caption: Ohr Somayach, Jerusalem entrance sign
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