Yeshivat Chovevei Torah

Modern Orthodox yeshiva, founded in 1999 by Rabbi Avi Weiss
Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School (YCT) is a yeshiva founded in 1999 by Rabbi Avi Weiss. Currently located in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, New York, its mission is to educate and place rabbis who are "open, non judgmental, knowledgeable, empathetic, and eager to transform Orthodoxy into a movement that meaningfully and respectfully interacts with all Jews, regardless of affiliation, commitment, or background." Its core values include a passionate commitment to the study of Torah and the tangential observance of halakha (Jewish law); intellectual openness and critical thinking in one's religious life; expanding the role of women in Judaism; commitment to the broader Jewish community; and a responsibility to improve the world and to care for every human being in it regardless of faith. YCT's rabbinic education program combines a classical curriculum in Tanakh, Talmud, and the codes of Jewish law with a program in pastoral counseling, leadership retreats, education in fundraising, and other realities of contemporary religious leadership. YCT ordained its first graduating class of rabbis in June 2004 and has continued to do so every June since. As of June 2019, the school had ordained 134 rabbis and has a placement rate of nearly 100%. Its current president and Rosh Yeshiva (head of school) is Rabbi Dov Linzer. In addition to its rabbinical studies program, the yeshiva offers a public Jewish educational program in association with the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale at its Bronx location. YCT also runs a variety of events open to the entire Jewish community, including its annual yemei iyun ("study days") on Bible and Jewish thought and a public lecture series.

The origins of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah go back to 1996 when Rabbis Avi Weiss and Saul Berman founded a program known as MeORoT that provided supplemental lectures on issues in liberal Orthodoxy to rabbinical students enrolled in Yeshiva University. At the time, the fellowship was co sponsored by Yeshiva University, Edah, and Weiss's synagogue, the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. In September 1999, Weiss and Linzer launched Yeshivat Chovevei Torah as an undergraduate learning program primarily for students at Columbia University and Barnard College. The YCT University Program had Linzer as its Rosh HaYeshiva and was housed at Congregation Ramath Orah, a Modern Orthodox congregation on 110th Street in Manhattan. In January 2000, the leadership of the YCT university program, which consisted of Weiss, Berman, Linzer, and Dov Weiss, decided to create a rabbinical school that would officially open in September 2000. In September 2000, the rabbinical school welcomed its first class of seven students. After spending five years housed at Columbia's Hillel, the school left Manhattan in the summer of 2010 and moved to the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. Controversies over YCT came to a head when, in 2006, YCT applied for membership in the Rabbinical Council of America, the rabbinical body affiliated with the Orthodox Union, the largest North American Modern and Centrist Orthodox body. YCT subsequently withdrew its application when it became apparent that the application would be denied. YCT graduates, who are not eligible for RCA membership, can join the International Rabbinic Fellowship, an organization co founded in 2008 by Avi Weiss and Marc Angel.

In the first 15 years of its history, YCT described itself as an Open Orthodox institution and its mission statement made heavy use of the term (Avi Weiss had coined it). The term provoked harsh criticism, though. At a May 2014 gala, one member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, called Open Orthodoxy heretical. In the fall of 2015, the Agudath Israel of America, an Ultra Orthodox rabbinical group, called Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, Yeshivat Maharat, Open Orthodoxy, and other affiliated entities as similar to other dissident movements throughout Jewish history having rejected basic tenets of Judaism. Sylvia Barack Fishman, a professor of Judaic studies at Brandeis University, stated that some critics use the term Open Orthodox derogatorily rather than descriptively to delegitimize Modern Orthodox Jews who support women's leadership in Judaism. Other faculty members include rabbis Ysoscher Katz, Nathaniel Helfgot, Chaim Marder, Miriam Schacter, and Michelle Friedman.

When the rabbinical school was founded, its first class had only 7 members. After what Yeshiva University's student newspaper, The Commentator, called in 2002 an "aggressive marketing campaign", many young men who previously would have considered Yeshiva University's rabbinical school are now attending YCT. A 2007 YU Commentator article reported YCT's enrollment to be 43 full time students. The first rabbi was ordained in 2003. According to a 2006 news article, YCT graduates about 10 students per year, and in a 2009 story it was reported that there were 54 total YCT graduates. YCT assumed EDAH's journal, website, and audio visual library. The school also took on EDAH's founding director, Rabbi Saul Berman, for a position as Director of Continuing Rabbinic Education.

Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, (Yeshivat Maharat notwithstanding), accepts only male candidates for ordination. However, YCT, unlike a number of rabbis and institutions within Orthodox Judaism, has promoted expanded roles for women in ritual life and religious leadership. Founder Avi Weiss explained: Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, as an Orthodox institution, requires that its students daven only in synagogues with mechitzot [partitions for the separation of men and women]. The phenomenon of women receiving aliyot in a mechitza minyan is currently being debated on both a halachic and communal level within the Modern Orthodox community. YCT Rabbinical School does not currently take a position on this issue. In June 2009, Weiss created the title MaHaRaT for Sara Hurwitz. He expressed his desire to have called her a rabbi, stating "She can do 95 percent of what other rabbis do". She was later titled "Rabba", a feminine version of the word "rabbi", despite female rabbis in other movements being called "rabbi". This led to complaints from the RCA, which led to Weiss stating he would not name future graduates as "rabba". Weiss subsequently resigned from the RCA. However, Yeshivat Maharat, which Weiss founded, allows its ordainees to choose their own titles, and in 2015 ordained Yaffa Epstein took the title Rabba. Also in 2015, Lila Kagedan was ordained by that same organization, and chose for herself the title Rabbi, making her their first graduate to take that title.

The Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America does not accept the school's ordination as valid for membership. In the fall of 2015, the Agudath Israel of America denounced moves to ordain women and went even further, declaring Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, Yeshivat Maharat, Open Orthodoxy, and other affiliated entities to be similar to other dissident movements throughout Jewish history in having rejected basic tenets of Judaism.