Kollel
The overwhelming majority of these Jews were scholars who left their homelands to devote themselves to study Torah and serve God for the rest of their lives.
The first examples were Kolel Perushim (students of the Vilna Gaon who established the first Ashkenazi Jewish settlement in Jerusalem) and Colel Chabad for the Russian Hasidim.
The last initially included the entire Austro-Hungarian Kingdom, but as each subparty looking for more courteous distribution, the Hungarians separated into Kolel Shomrei HaChomos.
Two people can be considered to have spearheaded[6][7] the kollel philosophy and outgrowth in today's world: Rabbi Aharon Kotler (founder of Beth Medrash Govoha, Lakewood, New Jersey, the largest yeshiva in the US) and Rabbi Elazar Shach, one of the most prominent leaders of the Jewish community in Israel until his death in 2001.
[15] Modest stipends, or the salaries of their working wives, and the increased wealth of many families have made kollel study commonplace for yeshiva graduates.
The Haredi community defends the practice of kollel on the grounds that Judaism must cultivate Torah scholarship in the same way that the secular academic world conducts research into subject areas.
(See also: Religious relations in Israel) Yeshiva students who learn in kollel often continue their studies and become rabbis,[16][17] poskim ("deciders" of Jewish law), or teachers of Talmud and Judaism.
Other locations with community kollelim include Atlanta, Dallas, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Miami Beach, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Phoenix, St. Louis, and Seattle.
Many Modern Orthodox communities host a Torah MiTzion kollel, where Hesder graduates learn and teach, generally for one year.
However, the kollel system is both a popular and accepted one in many Orthodox Jewish circles, yet some maintain that a distinction must be made between a situation of mutual desire for such by both the learner and the supporter and, on the other hand, communities that put pressure on the learner to join and remain in a kollel while simultaneously putting pressure on the community to support such an individual.
