Yeshivat Hamivtar

Yeshivat Torat Yosef - Hamivtar (ישיבת תורת יוסף - המבתר) is a men's yeshiva located in Efrat in the West Bank. The Roshei Yeshiva are Rabbi Yonatan Rosensweig and Rabbi Shlomo Riskin. The institution is primarily focused on post college-aged students and is part of the Ohr Torah Stone educational institutions founded by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin and Rabbi Chaim Brovender.

Yeshivat Hamivtar is closely associated with the Modern Orthodox and Religious Zionist/Dati Leumi schools of contemporary Orthodox Judaism. The Yeshiva emphasizes teaching its students how to become more independent learners, especially in Talmud. It caters to both students with strong religious backgrounds, and students adopting a more observant lifestyle. It is located just outside the southern gate of Efrat, between the city and the Kibbutz Migdal Oz - located in a campus called Kiryat Shoshana.

The institution has a non-rabbinical and rabbinical track. Students who do not opt for the rabbinical track often enter other Yeshivot or the workforce in Israel or other countries.

For students accepted into the Semicha program they are required to spend three-years studying Halacha in the afternoons in addition to their morning seder of Gemara. The three years usually consist of: Shabbat, Nidah, and Issur v'Heter. Other classes include Hashkafa (Jewish Philosophy) and Practical Rabbinics. A mandatory b'keiyut program in Talmud was instituted beginning with the 2008-2009 year.

The Yeshiva program, for students not focused on Semicha, has a wide array of classes. A seder of Talmud in the morning, followed in the afternoon by Halacha, Machshava, Navi, and Chumash. The curriculum is designed to make graduates a well rounded Jew capable of learning on their own in the original text. Some students may start out in the Yeshiva program and progress into the Semicha program.

Brovender founded Yeshivat Hamivtar in Givat HaMivtar in 1967 as a spinoff of Yeshivas Itri. The goal of the institution was to create a unique learning center with a dual emphasis on intellectual openness and the systematic teaching of Talmud and other texts. Brovender had been teaching at Darche Noam and left with ten-students to found the new Yeshiva including Rabbi Dovid Fink and Professor Charles Manekin.

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