During a long four-day weekend, over 300 students of Kollel Torah from all parts of Ukraine were treated to a special seminar in the Menorah Centre in the city of Dnieper, Ukraine. The event was chaired by Dnieper’s Chief Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetzky.

The purpose of seminars such as this is to give encouragement to the students in their quest for understanding and adopting a fully Jewish, mitzvah-observant way of life. The students enjoyed workshops, lectures, panel discussions and brainstorming sessions, but the crowning event was a series of wedding ceremonies that were held for those participants who had decided to become married according to Torah law.

The directors of Kollel Torah, Rabbi Moshe Weber and Rabbi Ben Tzion Lipsker, expressed their great excitement at hearing that participants had decided during the course of the seminar to begin to observe more mitzvos and to devote themselves more to Torah study. The RCE’s deputy director Rabbi Aryeh Goldberg was present at the closing ceremony, delivering the Centre’s blessings to this important institution and its participants.

The Kollel Torah network, in partnership with the RCE, operates some 120 branches throughout the CIS and Europe. Each branch is led by the rav of its city or congregation, and Jews come every day to attend classes in Gemara, Mishnah, Shulchan Aruch, the weekly parashah, and Jewish philosophy. The classes are delivered within the framework of a wide-ranging curriculum, and the students are tested on the materials that are taught. At the end of each month they receive a stipend.