yeshiva

yeshiva, any of numerous Jewish academies of Talmudic learning, whose biblical and legal exegesis and application of Scripture have defined and regulated Jewish religious life for centuries. The early history of the yeshiva as an institution is known only through indirect evidence, and the word itself did not come into current use until the 1st century ad. Rabbinic literature refers to religious study during the periods of the biblical patriarchs, the bondage in Egypt, and the wandering in the wilderness; Ecclesiasticus, written c. 190 bc, mentions the school of its author, Ben Sira. Influential religious academies were led by the sages Hillel and Shammai in the 1st century ad.

During the period of the Second Temple of Jerusalem (6th century bc–ad 70), however, the Great Sanhedrin, the supreme judicial body, was regarded as the major source of religious learning. Intimately connected with its function as a bet din (“house of judgment”) was that of a bet midrash (“house of study”); the sages of the Sanhedrin were anxious to gather and train students well versed in Jewish law so that they could participate in deliberations conducted by the Sanhedrin or by local courts under its jurisdiction. Thus, before making a judicial decision, its 71 members would “sit” before students (hence the Hebrew yeshiva and Aramaic metivta) and study the written and oral (Halakha) law.

Following the destruction of the Second Temple in ad 70, religious life centred upon the great rabbis, then located outside Jerusalem. The yeshiva of major importance in this period was that of Johanan ben Zakkai, who established an academy at Jabneh (or Jamnia, now Yibna) near the Judaean coast. Succeeding tanaim (“teachers”) and sages who dominated religious scholarship were Simeon ben Gamaliel (died 175) and his son, Judah ha-Nasi (c. 135–c. 220), under whose tutelage the compilation of the Mishna was completed.

From the mid-3rd century, Jewish scholarship concentrated on the legal exegesis of the Mishna by the amoraim (“lecturers,” or “interpreters”). In Palestine yeshivas were established in Lydda, Caesarea, Sepphoris, and Tiberias. These academies produced the Palestinian Talmud and undertook the collection of Midrashim (homiletic commentaries on the Bible).

Other yeshivas simultaneously flourished in Babylonia, two of which gained extraordinary renown. The first was established by Abba Arika after his arrival at Sura in 218. The other was set up at Pumbedita by Judah bar Ezekiel. From c. 200 to 1040 these two yeshivas had immense authority as centres of learning and issued “official” interpretations of the law.

As the Babylonian yeshivas declined, others arose in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and central Europe. Then, as Jews moved eastward, outstanding yeshivas were established in Poland. Important new centres of Jewish learning appeared in Turkey and Palestine following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

The Polish yeshivas suffered a debilitating blow in the violent persecutions of 1648–49, but by the latter part of the 18th century a mystical and pietistic movement called Ḥasidism won over large masses of Polish and Ukrainian Jews and in due course gave rise to new yeshivas.

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When the Enlightenment movement (Haskala) of eastern Europe (latter half of the 18th century) challenged the traditions of the yeshivas by adapting Judaism to modern culture, Ḥayyim ben Isaac attempted to counter its influence by establishing a yeshiva (1803) at Volozhin, Russia (now Valozhyn, Belarus). It profoundly influenced Russian Jewry until its final closing in 1892. By including secular subjects in its training of future rabbis, Volozhin departed from the traditional curriculum of European (Lithuanian, Polish, Hungarian) yeshivas.

The first yeshiva in the United States was ʿEtz Ḥayyim of New York (1886), modelled after that in Volozhin. It developed into the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Yeshiva (1896), which in turn became Yeshiva College in 1928 and Yeshiva University in 1945.

In the Nazi persecution of European Jews prior to and during World War II (1939–45) numerous yeshivas were destroyed and many scholars and rabbinic students were forced to seek other lands, notably England, Canada, the United States, and Palestine. Today the most outstanding yeshivas are located in the United States and Israel.

Rabbinic seminaries of Reform and Conservative Judaism are not usually called yeshivas. In the United States, a day school under Orthodox Jewish auspices is generally known as a “small yeshiva” (yeshiva qeṭana).