Mekor Haim Yeshiva High School

"Mekor Haim is not just a school: it is an educational home, striving to shape people, to create human beings?Turning a student into a mentsch is the greatest possible achievement."

--Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

Established in 1985, the Mekor Haim High School is a unique learning community, centered around a dormitory-based yeshiva for boys, which embodies a revolutionary philosophy of high school education. Mekor Haim is considered one of the very best religious high schools in Israel ? some 750 students from all over Israel apply each year for 60 coveted places in the freshman class. In 2005, Israel's Ministry of Education awarded Mekor Haim High School the prestigious Religious Education Award.

Due to its continuing expansion, Mekor Haim was recently relocated to the Gush Etzion region, about 20 minutes south of Jerusalem. The school, which today has a student body of nearly 300, has a beautiful 30-acre campus on a hilltop adjacent to Kibbutz Kfar Etzion.

Mission and Goals:

Mekor Haim was founded with the goal of educating a new generation of passionately committed Jews in an increasingly fragmented Israeli society. With his pioneering vision and deep commitment to the Jewish people, Rabbi Steinsaltz set out to create a school in which instilling love and respect for all Jews and the fulfillment of each student's potential would be paramount. The yeshiva continues to function according to Rabbi Steinsaltz's unique educational model: a blend of love for the People and the Land of Israel, analytic Lithuanian Torah scholarship, and Hasidic warmth and vitality.

Core Academic Program:

Mekor Haim's overarching educational approach is to develop a "spiritual intelligence" which focuses on identity, responsibility, internalization and sensitivity.

• Judaic Studies:
  
  The focus of the Judaic Studies program is Talmud study, which occupies four hours of the daily schedule. The curriculum also includes courses in the full range of Jewish literature and philosophy. In all realms of learning, emphasis is placed on understanding the relevance of the material for the individual and for society at large.
  
   


• General Studies:
  
  The general studies program at Mekor Haim seeks to broaden students' horizons and heighten their knowledge of the world. The school supplements the Ministry of Education's core curriculum with intensive tracks in mathematics, physics, biology, English, history, environmental studies, computers, and studies of the Land of Israel. Students also take courses in literature, Hebrew language and creative writing, and citizenship. Enrichment programs, including university-level courses, draw students together across grade-levels. The exceptionally high academic achievement of the Mekor Haim students is a by-product of self-motivation.

Additional Programs:

Mekor Haim's commitment to tikkun olam ("repairing the world") is exemplified by the school's volunteer program. Each week, the 12th grade students give of their time to participate in a weekly joint learning program with a secular high school in Jerusalem. In addition, throughout their years of study, students choose the area in which they would like to volunteer, including visiting the home-bound elderly, mentoring youth at risk, tutoring children from low-functioning and broken homes, helping the local ambulance corps and emergency center, and working with physically and emotionally handicapped youth and adults.

The students' work with children with special needs was so effective that the Ministry of Education called upon Mekor Haim to create a Special Education Classroom. The program accepts a small group of developmentally disabled students, with diagnoses ranging from attention deficit disorder (ADD) to cerebral palsy. While taught in separate classes, these students are mainstreamed into the school's everyday activities as much as possible and quickly become valued members of the Mekor Haim community.

Environment and Educational Approach:

• Faculty/Student Relationships:
  
  Faculty members work to foster a meaningful connection with students both in and out of the classroom. Every class has both a dormitory counselor, who serves as activities coordinator, advisor, and friend, and a designated faculty member who is personally involved with the students, meeting with each one on a regular basis for private chats. Evening activities, such as bonfires, create a unique atmosphere of camaraderie and friendship among the students and staff.
  
  
  
  Rabbi Steinsaltz maintains a very close connection to the yeshiva, serving as its spiritual mentor and spending every Thursday there to give classes and hold personal meetings with students and faculty.
  
   


• Diverse Student Body:
  
  Students come to Mekor Haim from all over Israel (and even a few from abroad) and reflect a wide range of family backgrounds. Diversity as an instrument for enhancing the vibrancy of the community is a core value of Mekor Haim. At the same time, the school views itself as an extension of the educational home environment and seeks to strengthen students' relationships with their parents and families.
  
   


• Creative Expression:
  
  The development of each student's particular talents is a focal point of Mekor Haim programming. The school offers a wide variety of after-school activities, including drama, painting, sports, cooking, martial arts, and music.
  
  
  
  Music and song are an important part of spiritual life at the Yeshiva. Singing and dancing as a true expression of one's emotions, particularly during prayer, enriches Mekor Haim's academic and religious environment.

Significant Achievements:

• In 1996, the Mekor Haim High School ranked #1 in all of Israel on the standardized national university matriculation (bagrut) exams taken by seniors. Students consistently perform in the top 1-2% of all students in the country.
  
   


• Following a visit to Mekor Haim, Shaike Shapira, the Supervisor of State Religious Schools for the Ministry of Education, said: "Your yeshiva high school received the highest rating of any school of its kind ever studied by the Ministry. On my visit to your campus I was exposed to a program which conducts education according to a spiritual vision, with well-defined goals."
  
   


• Mekor Haim is one of only two schools in the nation to be recognized by the Ministry of Education as a National Pedagogic Center, a learning laboratory and model for other schools around the country.
  
   


• In speaking of Mekor Haim's revolutionary work, the Israeli journal Nekuda declared in their headline that "A Holy Rebellion is Underway in Kfar Etzion." Nekuda went on to say that "Mekor Haim is developing a new educational stream? a blend of love for the Land of Israel, Lithuanian Torah scholarship, and Hasidic fervor. The faculty spurs the students to excellence, to accepting responsibility and to actualizing the maximum of their natural abilities in an atmosphere of diversity?Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz seeks to nurture in his students a 'spark of rebellion' ? never to be satisfied with themselves or the status quo. At the same time, he urges them to carry with them as they mature, the light of the innocence of their youth."

Post-High School:

Nearly all Mekor Haim graduates go on to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, most in the 5-year hesder track (army service combined with Yeshiva study). Some have returned to the yeshiva as educational staff, and others enroll in the school's Teacher Training Institute. This three-year program functions as a branch of the Herzog Teachers College (also based in Alon Shvut) and awards participants certification from the Ministry of Education upon completion of the course. The program focuses on those areas that are particular to the spirit of Mekor Haim: self-awareness, constructive criticism, and the principle that teachers must know how to listen, not just how to speak.

Mekor Haim has also initiated a unique program to train Rabbis as classroom educators. The program combines course work with a one-year classroom internship, partnering each participant with a faculty member.

Contact Us:

Mekor Haim Yeshiva High School

D.N. Tzfon Yehuda

Kfar Etzion 90912

ISRAEL

Phone: 972-2-993-4810

Fax: 972-2-993-4812

Email: makor-c@zahav.net.il