Yeruham Hesder Yeshiva

The story

In Yeruham a religious Zionist garin had been active since the seventies, and the garin of families expanded in the eighties with mission Nahal garinim of Bnei Akiva, under the coordination of Shmuel Ben Shalom. In 1993 Ben Shalom and some of the graduates of the garinim initiated the founding of the hesder yeshiva, and invited Rabbi Eliyahu Blumenzweig, then a lecturer at Yeshivat Har Etzion, to head it. The first cohort began to study in Elul 5753, and most of it came from the yeshiva high schools Beit El, Horev, HaYeshiva LaTze'irim and Kfar HaRo'eh; a group of students from Yeshivat Har Etzion came in order to strengthen the young yeshiva. In 5770 the yeshiva moved to a new home built next to the previous building. The yeshiva drew hundreds of students to the city, and many of them settled in it and contributed to its development. In 5767 a yeshiva high school, "Belevav Shalem", was established alongside it, as part of the same aim: assistance to the development towns in the educational field, in a yeshiva to which parents would send their sons by choice. The yeshiva continues the study tradition of Yeshivat Har Etzion, and in Jewish thought it is close to the teaching of Rabbi Kook. Its heads today are the rabbis Uriel Eitam and Haim Wolfson, alongside Rabbi Blumenzweig. In the Swords of Iron War ten of the students of the yeshiva and its graduates were killed in battle.

• Communities
• Education
• Yeruham