“I have given much thought to methods which could give our youth a thorough understanding and deep knowledge of our heritage, its beliefs, laws and ideas, “ Rabbi Dr. Judah Copperman, dean of “Michlala,” Jerusalem’s famous girl college told me when I visited him in his office in Bayit VeGan. “I found that this could best be achieved by an integrated study of the Bible which at one and the same time stresses exegesis, expounds the Halacha and dwells on the ethical and philosophical ideas and ideals of the Torah. Moreover, the integrated study of the Bible gives the student much more than mere knowledge. It molds their Jewish character.”
Rabbi Copperman did not reach this conclusion by sheer reflection. About twenty years ago, when he was the principal of a yeshiva high school in Jerusalem, he gathered a group of teachers for an in-depth study of selected chapters of the Bible. In their discussions, the educators would try to cover every aspect of these chapters. They would consult relevant passages from the Mishna, Halachic Midrashim, Talmud, Midrash, Targumim, the works of the great medieval authorities as well as from the more recent commentaries, such as those by the Malbim and Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin.
The participants felt that Rabbi Copperman’s “workshop” provided them with new pedagogic insights. It stimulated them to a new approach to the subjects they were teaching and they successfully used the integrative method in their class. The method made headway in wider circles when Rabbi Copperman began to publish booklets each of which was devoted to a specific subject of the Torah, to serve as text and guide books to instructors. Between 1960 and 1967 eighteen such booklets appeared.
“We found that our method was especially suited for girls,’ Rabbi Copperman continued. “Boys, Yeshiva students gain a deeper knowledge and understanding of the Torah by the study of the Talmud. But what about the girls? The integrative method provides the girls also with the intellectual excitement and satisfaction which a boy derives from the serious study of Gemara. The integrated study of the Bible is no less an intellectual challenge that the learning of a “blatt,’”
This led directly to the idea to found a girls’ college in which the new method of Bible instruction would occupy a central position. Rabbi Cooperman did not want to establish just another religious institution for women, but one that was different.
“Michlala” was founded in 1964. Its declared aim was to train Torah-true educators, academically and pedagogically qualified to teach all grades of high school.
The beginnings were small.
Rented rooms in Bayit Vegan. Twenty three students, one third of whom came from Beth Yaakov, a third from Horev and the rest from Mizrachi schools such as Ulpanah of Bnai Akiva. 19 lecturers – all whom received no pay. In the first year only Jewish subjects were taught.
Since then, “Michala” has developed into a very large institution.
Rabbi Copperman serves as dean and as chairman of the Bible Department. He is also active in the literary field. He has contributed to a variety of publications – a collection of studies appeared two years ago with the title “Lifshuto Shel Mikra” – and has been working on an annotated edition of “Meshech Chochma” by Rabbi Meir Simcha HaCohen of Dvinsk. Rabbi Copperman feels that this book should be familiar to all teachers of Bible. The first volume, Bereshit, appeared three years ago. It is dedicated to the memory of his father who died when Rabbi Copperman was only twelve years old. The introduction closes with deep-felt words about his widowed mother who singlehandedly raised six children to Torah and Mitzvoth in far away Dublin.
I have known Rabbi Copperman for twenty-five years. I have also known his brother Moshe, an architect in Jerusalem. Another brother resides in Tel Aviv. In 1952 my wife and I were in Ireland and we visited his family in Dublin.
Rabbi Copperman’s academic credentials are impressive. Ordained by Hevron Yeshiva, M.A. and LL.B. from Dublin University, M.A. from the University of Chicago. Ph.D. from the Hebrew Theological College in that city.
He was only twenty when he received his law degree and a B.A. in oriental studies from Dublin University. He was also awarded a gold medal as one of the eight top students.
He subsequently studied for a year at Gateshead. He was no newcomer to this Yeshiva. During his summer vacations from the university, he had attended classes there!
From 1950-1952 he studied at the Hebron Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Then he went to Chicago to continue his Jewish and general studies. In Chicago he married the former Zipporah Pincus, the daughter of a family of noted rabbis, whom he had met in Jerusalem.
After his return to Israel he studied at the Kollel of Hevron. He was offered the post of lecturer on pedagogy at the Hebrew University, but his wife insisted that it was better to be a teacher of Torah in a yeshiva high school than to serve as lecturer on education in a university. He accepted the principalship of the Yeshiva high school of Boys Town in Jerusalem in which position he served until he founded “Michlala.”
Zipporah helps her husband in his administrative studies. Their old friends, fellow students from Chicago, are among his major assistants: Rabbi Reuven Aberman, director of the division for foreign students; Rabbi Dr. Gerson Schwimmer, chairman of the Oral Law Department, and Rabbi David Fox, who is “Ram” at the “Netiv Meir“ Yeshiva and lectures at “Michala” on Bible and Talmud.
“Michlala” occupies three buildings on HaPisgah street in Bayit Vegan, but at times it seems that it has taken over the whole section, for wherever you look and wherever you turn you see its students coming and going, books and notes under their arms.
“Michlala” has outgrown its present facilities. Very soon it will move to its new campus, which when completed will house lecture halls, several laboratories, a large library, dormitory facilities for four hundred girls, a synagogue, gymnasium and swimming pool.
“What about a dining room?” I asked.
“No dining room,” Rabbi Copperman replied. “We want our students to become good Baale Bostes as well as good Jews and teachers. They will have cooking facilities in their rooms and must prepare their own meals. Similarly there will be no maid service.”
“Not long ago I was on a visit to Switzerland,” Rabbi Copperman added with a chuckle. “I met one of our former students. Among the first questions I asked her was whether she knew when the grocery stores opened in town. Girls must know this too!”
The Jewish Press, Friday, April 12, 1976