Chaim Berlin consists of a preschool, a yeshiva ketana (elementary school), a mesivta (high school), a college-level beth midrash, and Kollel Gur Aryeh, its post-graduate kollel division.
The school was established in 1904 as Yeshiva Tiferes BachuriminBrownsville, Brooklyn, by Jews who moved there from the Lower East Side of New York City,[1] thus making it the oldest yeshiva in Kings County.[2] At the suggestion of Meir Berlin (Bar-Ilan), it was renamed in 1914 for his brother, Chaim Berlin, Chief Rabbi of Moscow and later Jerusalem, and who had also served in Valozhyn, from where several of the yeshiva's founders came.[3][1]
Chaim Berlin's Mesivta (high school) was, for a while, located in Far Rockaway[4] headed by Shlomo Freifeld.[5]
The yeshiva's Stone & Pitkin (Brownsville) seven-story building, formerly known as the Municipal Bank Building,[6] was purchased in 1940;[7]Jacob Rutstein was their major philanthropist.
[8]
Leadership
editAaron Schechter (white beard) celebrating Purim in Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin during the late 1970s.
The founding rosh yeshiva, Yaakov Moshe Shurkin, served from 1936 until his death in 1963. Yitzchok Hutner joined the faculty during 1936–1937, and gave monthly lectures as rosh yeshiva from 1943 to 1980. In the late 1970s, a branch was opened in Jerusalem called Yeshiva Pachad Yitzchok (Fear of Isaac).[9]
After Hutner's death, the New York yeshiva was headed by his disciple Aaron Schechter, and the Jerusalem branch was headed by his son-in-law Yonason David.[9] When Schechter died in 2023, the leadership of the yeshiva passed to his son-in-law Shlomo Halioua.[10]
Chaim Berlin consists of a preschool, a yeshiva ketana (elementary school), a mesivta (high school), a college-level beth midrash, and Kollel Gur Aryeh, its post-graduate kollel division. Total enrollment for all divisions approaches 2,000 students.[13] The mesivta acts as a feeder school for the beth midrash.[14][15]
The yeshiva maintains a summer location, Camp Morris, in Sullivan County, New York.[16] The Yeshiva also runs a summer youth program with the name Chaim Day Camp.
^"The Kriah Clinic". Rav Shlomo Freifeld zt"l related the following story: When Rav Shlomo was Mashgiach at Yeshivas Rabbi Chaim Berlin, one bochur ...
^Reb Shlomo Carlebach Biography, Shlomo Carlebach Foundation. Accessed September 19, 2023. "Shlomo also studied at the Chaim Berlin Yeshiva in Brooklyn, and in 1954, received rabbinic ordination from its Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner."
^"Shlomo Freifeld, Rabbi, 66", The New York Times, October 8, 1990. Accessed September 19, 2023. "Rabbi Freifeld was born in Brooklyn and was a disciple of Rabbi Isaac Hutner at Yeshiva Chaim Berlin. He later became dean of men there before founding Sh'or Yoshuv in 1967."