The Rabbi Jacob Joseph School is an

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

Jewish day school A Jewish day school is a modern Jewish educational institution that is designed to provide children of Jewish parents with both a Jewish and a secular education in one school on a full-time basis. The term "day school" is used to differentiate s ...

located in

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

that serves students from nursery through twelfth grade, with another branch in

Edison, New Jersey Edison is a township located in Middlesex County,in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated in Central New Jersey within the core of the state's Raritan Valley region, Edison is a commercial hub, home to Menlo Park Mall and Little India. It is ...

. The school was founded in 1903 by Rabbi Shmuel Yitzchok Andron and named in honor of Rabbi

Jacob Joseph Jacob Joseph ( he, יעקב יוסף 1840 –July 28, 1902) served as chief rabbi of New York City's Association of American Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, a federation of Eastern European Jewish synagogues. Born in Krozhe, a province of Kovno ...

, chief rabbi of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

's Association of American Orthodox Hebrew Congregations. After Rabbi Andron's death, his son Raphael and Samuel I. Andron obtained a charter from the New York Board of Regents in 1903 to establish a school in his name. The Rabbi Jacob Joseph School was known for its rigorous

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...

ic curriculum and remains open to students from nursery age through the twelfth grade. Its founders originally established the school on

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

Orchard Street Orchard Street is a street in Manhattan which covers the eight city blocks between Division Street in Chinatown and East Houston Street on the Lower East Side. Vehicular traffic runs north on this one-way street. Orchard Street starts from ...

in the Lower East Side . It moved to Henry Street in 1907, and expanded to a second building in 1914.

Lazarus Joseph Lazarus Joseph (January 25, 1891 – May 23, 1966) was an American lawyer and politician from New York City. A member of the Democratic Party, he was a New York State Senator from 1934 to 1945, and was the New York City Comptroller from 1946 to ...

(1891–1966), grandson of Rabbi Jacob Joseph, and NY State Senator and

New York City Comptroller The Office of Comptroller of New York City, a position established in 1801, is the chief financial officer and chief auditor of the city agencies and their performance and spending. The comptroller also reviews all city contracts, handles the s ...

, played an active role as a board member in the school.

1969-present

In 1969, it stopped its younger grades. Enrollment was low, and the neighborhood had become rough. In 1972, it made plans to open a new campus in Riverdale, but ultimately, in 1976, the school moved to the

Richmondtown Richmondtown is a neighborhood in the Mid-Island section of Staten Island, New York City. It is bounded by Arthur Kill Road on the northwest, Richmond Road on the north, Amboy Road on the east and southeast, and the United Hebrew and Ocean ...

area of

, where it maintained the boys' school campus until 2017 (they then moved to Amboy Rd); a girls division of the elementary school was established in Staten Island's Graniteville section. In 1982, a boys high school branch and Beis Medrash was opened in

. Although the school ("RJJ") is no longer an "advanced" yeshiva, it "produced hundred of rabbis and community leaders in the late 1940s, the 1950s and the 1960s, and was also an important feeder school for the Lakewood yeshiva, Beis Medrash Govoha". The school also produces a semi-annual scholarly publication, the ''

Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society The ''Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society'' is a semiannual Orthodox Jewish academic journal published by the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School and edited by Alfred Cohen. As its title implies, it is devoted to the interface between ''halakha'' (' ...

'' ("The RJJ Journal"), edited by one of its rabbinic alumni. The purpose of the Journal is to "study the major questions facing Jews... through the prism of Torah values," and "explore the relevant biblical and Talmudic passages and survey the halakhic literature including the most recent

responsa ''Responsa'' (plural of Latin , 'answer') comprise a body of written decisions and rulings given by legal scholars in response to questions addressed to them. In the modern era, the term is used to describe decisions and rulings made by scholars i ...

. The Journal does not in any way seek to present itself as the halachic authority on any question, but hopes rather to inform the Jewish public of the positions taken by rabbinic leaders over the generations." Rabbi Dr.

Marvin Schick Marvin Schick (July 3, 1934 – April 23, 2020) was a Hunter College and The New School, New School for Social Research political science and constitutional law professor. He was also known for his work in Jewish education.

served for over 30 years as the (unpaid) President of RJJ until his death in 2020; he had succeeded

Irving Bunim Irving M. Bunim was a businessman, philanthropist and a lay leader of Orthodox Jewry, in particular the Young Israel movement in the United States from the 1930s until his death in 1980. As an assistant to Aharon Kotler, he was involved in aspects ...

Notable alumni

Robert Aumann Robert John Aumann (Hebrew name: , Yisrael Aumann; born June 8, 1930) is an Israeli-American mathematician, and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He is a professor at the Center for the Study of Rationality in the Hebrew ...

(born 1930), recipient of the

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...

in 2005. *

Ari L. Goldman Ari L. Goldman (born September 22, 1949) is an American professor and journalist. He is professor of journalism at Columbia University and a former reporter for ''The New York Times''. Early life and education Goldman attended the Rabbi Jacob ...

(born 1949), author and former religion reporter for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. *

Louis Henkin Louis Henkin (November 11, 1917 – October 14, 2010), widely considered one of the most influential contemporary scholars of international law and the foreign policy of the United States, who was "often credited with creating the field of human ...

(1923-2010), human rights law scholar. *Rabbi

Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg ( he, חיים פנחס שיינברג;‎ 1 October 1910 – 20 March 2012) was a Polish-born, American-raised, Israeli Haredi rabbi and rosh yeshiva who, from 1965, made his home in the Kiryat Mattersdorf neighborho ...

(1910-2012), founder and head of

Torah Ore , image = Torah Ore yeshiva.jpg , image_size = , alt = , caption = , address = 3 Sorotzkin Street , region = Kiryat Mattersdorf , city ...

yeshiva in the

Kiryat Mattersdorf Kiryat Mattersdorf ( he, קרית מטרסדורף) is a Haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem. It is located on the northern edge of the mountain plateau on which central Jerusalem lies. It is named after Mattersburg (formerly ''Mattersdorf''), a town ...

neighborhood of

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

,Zuroff, Avraham. ''Rabbi Wittow, Behind the Wheel With Harav Scheinberg''. ''Hamodia'' Magazine, 2 June 2011, pp. 26–27. Retrieved 16 June 2011. world-renowned educator and decisor of Jewish law, and member of

Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (, "Council of great Torah ages) is the supreme rabbinical policy-making council of the Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah movements in Israel; and of Agudath Israel of America in the United States. Members are usually pr ...

of Israel. *

Sheldon Silver Sheldon Silver (February 13, 1944 – January 24, 2022) was an American Democratic Party politician, attorney, and convicted felon from New York City who served as speaker of the New York State Assembly from 1994 to 2015. A native of Manhattan' ...

(1944-2022), Former Speaker of the New York State Assembly.McKinley, Jr., James C
"Silver Is an Albany Strongman, And It's Not Because He's Flashy"
''

'', February 11, 2003. Accessed October 23, 2010. *Rabbi Meir Stern, rosh yeshiva of Passaic *Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, rosh yeshiva of Slabodka *

Marvin Hier Marvin (Moshe Chaim) Hier (born 1939 in New York City) is the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, its Museum of Tolerance and of Moriah, the center's film division. Early life Hier was born in 1939 in New York City. His Jewish paren ...

(born 1939), founder of the

Simon Wiesenthal Center The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is a Jewish human rights organization established in 1977 by Rabbi Marvin Hier. The center is known for Holocaust research and remembrance, hunting Nazi war criminals, combating anti-Semitism, tolerance educat ...

Meir Zlotowitz Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz (13 July 1943 – 24 June 2017) was an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, author and founder of ArtScroll Publications. Early life Meir attended Yeshivas Rabbi Jacob Joseph ( RJJ) on the Lower East Side of New York. He went on to atte ...

, (1943-2017), founder of Artscroll publications. *

Tzvi Hersh Weinreb Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb (born 1940) is an ordained rabbi, a qualified psychotherapist and the Executive Vice President Emeritus of the Orthodox Union, the largest Orthodox Jewish organisation in North America; a position he has held since 20 ...

(born 1940), Executive Vice President Emeritus of the

Orthodox Union The Orthodox Union (abbreviated OU) is one of the largest Orthodox Jewish organizations in the United States. Founded in 1898, the OU supports a network of synagogues, youth programs, Jewish and Religious Zionist advocacy programs, programs for ...

. * Rabbi Mordechai Willig (born 1947),

Rosh Yeshiva Rosh yeshiva ( he, ראש ישיבה, pl. he, ראשי ישיבה, '; Anglicized pl. ''rosh yeshivas'') is the title given to the dean of a yeshiva, a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primar ...

RIETS Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS ) is the rabbinical seminary of Yeshiva University (YU). It is located along Amsterdam Avenue in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Named after Yitzchak Elchanan S ...

. *Rabbi

Reuven Bulka Reuven Pinchas Bulka (; June 6, 1944 – June 27, 2021) was a Canadian rabbi, writer, broadcaster, and activist. He was the spiritual leader of Congregation Machzikei Hadas in Ottawa from 1967, first as Rabbi and then as Rabbi Emeritus, and se ...

(1944–2021), recipient of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the ...

and Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation

Machzikei Hadas Machzikei Hadas (literally translated from Hebrew as 'Supporters of the law') is a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Congregation Machzikei Hadas, is open to all, regardless of level of observance. Machzikei Hadas is broadenin ...

. *

References

External links

Yeshiva Merkaz Hatorah of Staten Island
{{Coord, 40.50052, -74.39837, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-NJ, display=title Jews and Judaism in Staten Island Universities and colleges in Staten Island Jewish day schools in New York (state) Modern Orthodox Jewish day schools in the United States Modern Orthodox Judaism in New Jersey 1903 establishments in New York City Educational institutions established in 1903 Education in Manhattan Private elementary schools in Staten Island