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Featured Student: Yaakov Kaufman

Yaakov KaufmanYaakov Kaufman was born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey in a home where scholarship was encouraged and Shabbat dinners were known. He attended Conservative Hebrew School even after his Bar Mitzvah and genuinely enjoyed it, but came to realize that the truth lay somewhere else. Starting in high school he attended a small weekly program where Orthodox students from Princeton University led discussions on Jewish topics, working off of primary texts. The analytical rigor there and willingness to hold firm opinions appealed to Yaakov, who was involved in debate clubs at school; this prompted much introspection and research into Jewish texts and philosophy. Evidently, Torah spoke for itself, and by the time he was choosing colleges, Yaakov knew he wanted a campus with a strong Jewish community to support an observant lifestyle.

The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia proved a good fit for Yaakov. He immediately joined the Orthodox Community at Penn and made a place for himself in their well-stocked Beit Midrash. There he got to know Rabbi Jonathan Shulman, a Shapell’s alum and the Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus rabbi at the time, as well as the Chabad and Meor rebbeim. Within a year, Yaakov was an integral part of the campus community, attending Night Seder regularly, staffing numerous committees, and running a kosher grocery delivery service from the suburbs. During his four years at Penn he earned a BA and MA in linguistics, which suited his interest in language and allowed him to write a thesis on Biblical Hebrew vowels. Over academic breaks he managed to participate in Lower Merion’s 1st Seder program and the Lakewood Fellowship.

Yaakov always wanted to do some full-time learning after college in Eretz Yisrael, Thanks to his connection with Rabbi Shulman, Shapell’s was the natural choice for where Yaakov would learn after Penn, from which he graduated this past May. Since he arrived in Elul, he has been very happy with that decision. “The learning is so clear at Shapell’s,” he says, “and you can feel that the rebbeim, the students, the staff all want to be here.” Yaakov has seen his Gemara skills improve remarkably over the last seven months and finally feels like he is learning how to learn. He enjoys the variety of backgrounds and outlooks among the people here, as well as the attention given to derech eretz and normalcy; being in Yerushalayim has also contributed to a fantastic experience. Yaakov looks forward to further growth at Shapell’s and contributing what he can to the community.

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