This past shabbos over 1,000 people attended the Aish HaTorah Partners Conference. Aish Rabbis from Austin, Los Angeles, Boston, Brazil, Baltimore, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Johannesburg, Livingston New Jersey, London, Melbourne, Minnesota, New York, Philadelphia, Santiago, South Florida, Toronto, Washington D.C., and Jerusalem attended as well as hundreds of Aish community families and partners in Kiruv. This years theme was: “Taking responsibility.” Aish’s accomplishments were shown, several being Aish.com which now attracts almost 3 million people a month, Jerusalem fellowships which took almost 4,000 people to Israel this past year, Hasbara Fellowships which took has taken over 2,000 campus Pro-Israel activists to Israel in the past 2 years, the new AishCafe.com which is an Internet learning program which pays college students to take Jewish Classes, Honestreporting.com the most looked at website for news fighting anti- Israel bias news out of the middle east, the success of the movie Obsession regarding Radical Islam, and now Media Central which is a new base for journalist in Jerusalem which is trying to show to journalists Israel from Israel’s point of view.
The Partners Conference began on Thursday and ended on Sunday. The Rosh Yeshiva Rav Noach Weinberg and various worldwide Aish Rabbis spoke throughout Shabbos.
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22 Responses
Is Aish becoming the new standard for Kiruv? They seem to have expanded beyond just Aish and its branches. I am beginning to sense that as the mega organization that they are they will soon be the organization that includes all others.
No need to be a Baal Tshuva to enjoy Aish.com. It is an amazing website with wonderful audio shiurim from so many great speakers including my favorite Rabbi Motty Berger. It is a great source for Kiruv “Krovim”!
interesting that they picket their conference the same week the Chabad shluchim did.
Regarding the shluchim conference its just a coincidence. Nov. is the cheapest time in the winter to book a hotel for a conference.
I am not sure what 1,2,3, and 4 remarks are about but I can tell you from experience that Aish Ha-Torah has helped thousands of Jews to become Shomer Torah U’mitzvah worldwide and to say otherwise or hint that they are not creditable is not right. If it was not for Aish I would not be shomer Torah U’mitzvah nor would my children!
I dont know what your experience was, iib, but I can tell you that at the St. Louis branch they can rarely get more than a handful of students. In fact, they’ve turned a lot of people off to Judaism with their incessant fundraising and lack of concern for dealing with Jews as people rather than as potential yeshiva bochurim.
Okay so I noticed there were only 5 comments on this article and its getting me nervous. Does the Yeshivish world care about kiruv or not? Even though numerous Gedolim are coming out recently urging people to do kiruv, including even making it the theme of this year’s Agudah convention, are people listening?
Aditor: this coudl be a great topic to ask. Mayeb make it its own topic?
sephardic pride – What do you want people to say?
To#7: Why is the number of comments an indicator of our feelings on kiruv? This was an informative pice of news about the conference.
Which one of us is not involved in some form of kiruv today and who doesn’t know about Aish and their fantastci achievments worldwide.
This was not a topic that called for any big debate.
To#6 – this is pure an undiluted Loshon Hora or rather Motzi Shem ra. I am not sure why your comment slipped through the moderator’s censorship. We can do without these kind of comments.
Sephardicpride, the community has limited resources. No one is denying the importance of Kiruv, however the question is if one would do a cost benefit analyzes of how much money Aish spends and how many baal tzuvas they make and figure out if you used that same money for other things (tuition help for the frum middle class, shiduchim, at risk kids) which option would produce more mitvot.
Noname
It is obvious you are miss-guided and miss-informed you are not expressing your self with facts but rather with information that is second hand. I can write hundreds of examples crediting AISA with savings hundreds of Jews and bringing them into the Jewish fold. Even if you could site a mistake on their behalf it does not represent AISA as a whole but rather a local representation. I should note I have not be affiliated with AISH in the last 18 years but again that played a vital role in assisting not only my self but my sister and brother to become frum. Between the three of us we have 10 children all FFB leaning in Yeshiva.
mrmoose;
Are you suggesting we stop donating for Kiruv causes? “If you save the life of one Jew it is if you saved the world”. Its great that all of you FFB grew up in a home full of Torah but why discremanate against BT why not offer other Jews the opportunity to share our Torah and values.
To #10. Besides the comments of #11, I would like to correct the mistaken impression that kiruv efforts tend to drain money from the frum community (that perhaps could be used to better effect elsewhere).
The truth is that kiruv activity provides a LARGE input of money into the frum community.
This is not only thru those that become frum, but even those who do not become frum usually become bigger supporters (and even major supporters) of frum mosdos because of their increased connection and sympathies to frum yiddishkeit.
I personally (and others active in kiruv today) know of many cases of both the former and the latter.
#6 – I don’t where you got your facts from. Just this past shabbos, Aish hosted a Friday night authentic shabbos seudah for over 30 families in the “Aish Firehouse” in St. Louis.
#10 – I have heard directly from Aish families who are doing kiruv that their major financial donor requires actual statistics showing how many more people Aish influenced each time he gives them more money. If they can’t keep the numbers going up, they don’t get the donation.
The fact that they do get the donations proves how much excellent work Aish is doing.
to #9. I barely know what Loshon hora is, and I don’t know what Motzi Shem ra is. You see, I am one of those secular Jews that Aish is supposed to be reaching out to, but isn’t. I guess the moderator let my comment slip through because he thought that it might be interesting to see what others think of the organization, rather than just have the comment forum serve as a celebratory echo chamber for Aish’s applause.
kugel,
30 families is stretch unless the average family size is 1.5, outside of the rabbi’s. I would say it was a successful event though.
however, its success masks a problem. An entire generation is being lost (20-45) with intermarriage rates reachnig or exceeding 70% in the St. Louis area. Think of all those families not having Jewish or Jewishly aware children. Ignoring this generation and “reaching out” to older, already-jewish families and older couples from previous generations, is skipping over the real problem. If you are picking the “low hanging fruit” you’re not really reaching out very far, by definition, are you?
to number 10, when calling others misguided and misinformed, please spell the words properly. Perhaps you should investigate things at Aish (or at least learn how to spell it), as a lot can change in 18 years. For instance, 18 years ago the Berlin Wall was still standing.
#6 I don’t know where you get your facts from. The last sentence of the first paragraph of the Aguda Convention article talks about “stem(ming) the terrible tide of assimilation and intermarriage.” Did you know there has not been ONE SINGLE marriage between 2 St. Louis ba’al tshuva Aish participants this century? The “fact” that over thirty families participated would be impressive if true, (I didn’t count but that number seems quite high) but regardless family events are doing nothing to reverse the intermarriage rate in that city, which is over 50%, and I would estimate quite a bit over. And there hasn’t been a much-ballyhooed Speeddating event at the Firehouse in many years.
Those, Mr. Kugel, are the facts.
12
I am totally for against kiruv I just want proof that Aish Hatorah gives us the best bang for our tzedakah buck. A Yid I know in Hafia, R Peretz Myer, is micarev many people every year on a shoestring. Many chabad mosdos do the same. Their is no question that many frum families are reducing how many children they have because of tuition worries, so their is also an element of saving lives in tuition relief.
To Mr. NoName:
Firstly, what is your problem? Your obviously one of these of these bitter off the derech Jews who feel like the world has to cater to your matchmaking needs. If you are so “secular” as you claim I thnk there are better sources of news then Yeshivaworld.com! You have no idea Aish St. Louis’s real numbers so please don’t go on message boards claiming them. What good are you getting from doing that?
For your own info Speedating has not happended anywhere in a long time for a number of reasons not just in St. Louis, so just judging from those statements alone you obviously have no idea what your talking about.
Calm down you will meet someone soon. Don’t take your dating frustrations out on a kiruv place that I know tries extremely hard and has been extremely successful. I nkow people who have been saved by them.
Also pleae don’t make statements that are false. Its just not in good character.
Before we start knocking Aish STL or it’s kiruv practices, let us remember who built this city, head into the major shuls here, take a look at the big money behind most of the mosdos, and you will find Aish products. Aish is not trying to make Yeshiva Bochurim, its in the business of building a kiruv movement. SO lets have a little hakaras hatov for those people who put their lives into building klal yisrael. It took other organizations decades to realize what Aish has been shouting for longer. Klal Yisrael is in trouble and we have to do something about it. I owe much to Aish STL. And so does any other person who lives in St Louis. Shame on you.
to #6: In The firehouse there is a list of people who have met and married through Aish programs. You are simply wrong. Keep your negativity to yourself buddy.