Summer Comeback at Machon Alte in Tzfas After 2 Year Break

By Yehuda Sugar

The summer retreat program at Machon Alte, an icon among yeshivas for English-speaking baalos teshuva in Tzfat, staged an enviable comeback upon reopening after Covid to the delight of 30 young women treated to the school’s trademark spiritual, social and academic prowess.

The program of Machon Alte’s Women’s Institute of Higher Jewish Education ran from June 22 to Aug. 4, Thursday, restarting this year after a two-year break due to Covid.

After being sent home from a modern Orthodox seminary in Israel in March of 2020 due to the same Covid closings that affected Machon Alte, Nicole “Nili” Gruenzweig, 20, of Staten Island, New York, was determined to make it back to Israel to learn but this time in a Chabad setting.

“I started doing research and asked around what would be a good summer fit for me,” said Gruenzweig, a fall enrollee at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. “Every single person I asked told me I need to go to Machon Alte, saying, ‘you are going to love it and you will not want to come home.’ After almost finishing the program, I am beyond satisfied, and rejuvenated in my learning and my connection with G-d. They were right. I really don’t want to go home.’”

During its 43-year history with a summer program in its 25th year, Machon Alte, founded by Rabbi Yosef Rosenfeld and his wife, Rochel Leah Rosenfeld in 1979, has attracted a steady stream of women to its summer retreat and regular year programs due to the school’s decidedly warm atmosphere, full spectrum Torah education and close attention to the needs of the students, said Rabbi Chaim Rosenfeld, co-director of the school.

The attention is delivered from the highest rungs of the administration to the madrichot in a process starting with identifying new prospects with the help of Chabad on Campus, Chabad House and CTeen organizations globally, he said. The application and recruiting process is carried out with great care by staff members like recruiter Esti Silco-Yanover and administrator, Sonia Benharosh.

“We have a most solid educational curriculum but it doesn’t stop there,” said summer educational director Chaya Faistman. Side attractions, including a Jerusalem weekend, hikes along the Haifa coast, trips to Rosh Hanikra and Hebron, farbrengens, bonfires, singalongs, paint night and vision board activities “round out the program.” This is in addition to the amenities of comfortable dorm accommodations, three healthy meals a day and attention to general fitness.

The scholastic program caters to beginner and advanced levels with classes in Chassidus, Jewish Law, Tanach, Talmud and Jewish Philosophy, including topics of particular interest to the contemporary Jewish woman, she said. Among the summer program attractions is the presence of Scholars-in-Residence, Rabbi Eli Nosson Silberberg, Rosh Yeshiva during the year of the acclaimed Chicago Lubavitch Mesivta, and his wife Hindy Silberberg, teacher and community activist.

Chaya Brenman, 21, of Sao Paulo, Brazil, after originally signing up only for the summer program has decided to stay on for the upcoming year. A returnee to Jewish observance from the age of 15, she eventually was nurtured in the ways of Chabad Chassidus by Sao Paulo Shluchim Rabbi Eliyahu Stiefelman and his wife, Marike. She was encouraged by the couple to consider Machon Alte’s summer program at a time she was already warm to the general idea.

“I was learning part-time in a non-Chabad seminary and working and thought that before getting married, bezras HaShem, I needed somehow to do an intense Chabad learning somewhere,” she said.

Machon Alte was the pick and it doesn’t seem like she will be looking back.

“Here, I was able to focus 100 percent on avodas HaShem (service of G-d) and doing the mitzvahs with total simcha (joy),” said Brenman, discernibly aglow with the experience. “I felt safe asking questions and held by the staff and teachers. Machon Alte has become my family away from my family.”

Brenman will be taking a break from her job as a high school teacher to join the regular season class the school looks forward to welcoming in September.

After being interviewed first, Margalite Gerike, a 25-year-old from Berlin stuck around to hear her fellow students’ comments in an apparent testimonial of the closeness among the students cultivated in the tight-knit program.

A classic consumer of Chabad’s educational system and goals, Gerike, made a connection three years ago with the Chabad emissaries to Potsdam, Germany near Berlin, where she worked in a pre-school. The emissaries, recently deceased Rabbi Nochum Pressman and his surviving wife, Michal, had made much impact on her and now it was time for Gerike, at the urging of Rebbetzin Pressman, to fulfill a dream she had been harboring.

“I missed the seminary experience when I was younger because I was not frum yet and always wanted to make up for what I missed,” said Gerike, a master’s level religious studies major. “Machon Alte has more than satisfied my expectations both as a community and place of learning.”

Asked about her most memorable experience of the summer, Gerike didn’t hesitate to identify her Tanya class with Rabbi Silberberg. She then cited the takeaway lesson from her learning that every Chabad educator wants to hear a student has gleaned, whether from the Tanya or any of Chabad’s teachings: “To find simcha only in G-d.”

Parting with the students as they did on Thursday isn’t ever easy for the staff and faculty as they grow close to each class, said Chaim Rosenfeld, but “we are heartened to know we will soon be welcoming a new slate of students for the upcoming year.”