He served until 1980, overseeing the establishment of Orthodox day schools at hundreds of sites across the country; he is considered the most influential leader of Torah Umesorah.
[11] The afternoon/Talmud Torah system was deemed "failing to transmit Yiddishkeit in a compelling manner to students who arrived tired in the afternoons and were constantly subjected to assimilationist influences in American culture.
"[2] By the end of the twentieth century, Torah Umesorah had developed more than 600 yeshivas and day schools in the United States and Canada, enrolling more than 170,000 Jewish students.
In the afternoons or on Sundays they would send the children to Cheder or Talmud Torah-type Jewish-run schools for religious training, as had been the tradition in Europe.
They were subject to the secularizing forces in their mixed communities, encountering the larger American society and culture in public school, on the street, and at home.
The associate would recruit, assist, supervise and guide the teachers who would teach the secular subjects generally taught in the public schools.
Many American Jews were sympathetic to the rabbis' appeals to ensure a moderate Jewish education for their children, at least until the Bar Mitzvah age (12-13).
Parents believed that having their children study in the Cheders and Talmud Torahs had failed to gain their commitment to Judaism and practicing as religious adults.
Holocaust survivors who immigrated to the United States in the postwar years were often strong supporters of the Orthodox Jewish day schools.
"[1] Toward the latter part of the twentieth century, Torah Umesorah officials found that teachers and rabbis from the Haredi and Hasidic schools were consulting with its staff for training to improve classroom management, enhance classroom discipline and learn up-to-date teaching skills and techniques which they often did not receive during yeshiva training.
Torah Umesorah has worked to find funding to establish kollelim ("post-graduate" Talmudic schools) in any community that is willing to set up the infrastructure and host such efforts.
Some young rabbis and rebbetzins (their wives) have taken full- and part-time positions as Jewish educators in the local day schools.
Under the guidance of Rabbi Eli Gewirtz, Torah Umesorah began a new initiative to promote Jewish adult education.
[citation needed] In early 2019, an anonymous donor challenged Partners in Torah to use technology to drastically increase its reach and impact, reduce costs, and collect data on participant activity.
Blessed with a significant grant to support this effort, Partners in Torah successfully launched the first version of a technology platform in early 2020, just before the onset of Covid.
Project SEED pays most yeshiva students a stipend to defray much (but not all) of the cost of their stay at their destination, air-fare, room and board, trips and other transportation.