Malke Bina

Malke Bina is the founder and first teacher of Matan Women's Institute for Torah Studies. She has a master's degree in Hebrew Bible from Yeshiva University. She is married to a rabbi (who serves on Matan's Council of Rabbis and is called by the term Rabbanit, which is less common in Modern Orthodox circles. Bina does not consider herself a rabbi and, at a 2004 conference of Orthodox Jewish Feminists, emphasized her focus on Talmud study. She was interviewed by JOFA in 2006 and serves on its Council of Advisers. She also pioneered women's reading of Megillat Esther on Purim.

Bina attended a Bais Yaakov school in Baltimore where she didn't learned Mishna or Gemara.

Right after the Six Day War Bina went to Israel to attend Michlala, where she studied Mishna, “and felt that it was a pity not to further expand my learning, now that I had been given a taste of the subject. I also thought that I would learn Gemara in the future. If it was available, why shouldn’t women do it?”

After meeting her husband, Rabbi Aharon Bina and moving to America, Bina completed a Masters program at Revel at Yeshiva University, where learned certain sugyot of Gemara.

Bina completed her M.A. in Bible and History at the Bernard Revel Graduate School, Yeshiva University in 1972.

Rabbanit Bina is the Founder and Director of MaTaN, an innovative institution dedicated to furthering women's Torah study, paving the way for them to learn Talmud, Tanakh and Halakha at the highest levels, in a vibrant atmosphere that is open to diverse spiritual and intellectual perspectives.

She says, “My goal was to open up an institution B”H that would welcome any woman who wanted to come to study. The dream was not just to provide adult education for women, including high level Talmud studies, but to create a strong beit midrash that would be a wellspring for future female religious leaders...We wanted the learning at MaTaN to be a mainstream activity for post high school religious women who would devote themselves to Torah Lishma (Torah for its own sake), not necessarily for a degree. I consider that it took 10 years for MaTaN to become mainstream and no longer be peripheral. Originally there were 4 to 6 women in the beit midrash. Now we have 22 women in a three-year Talmud program, and 20 in the Tanakh program. These are women from other areas of study who spend between one to three years at MaTaN...The emphasis at MaTaN is on study as a religious act, but always combined with high intellectual goals...At MaTaN we try to stress that learning should be new and fresh and exciting every day—the stress on hayom (today).”

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