Rosh HaYeshivah Rav Yerachmiel Weiss

Rav Yerachmiel Weiss has been Rosh Yeshivah of Yeshivat Yerushalayim L’Tzeirim for over thirty years.

He was born in Natanya in 1945 and went to school in Kfar HaRoeh. In eleventh grade, he left high school to study with Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav, concurrently completing high school requirements.

A student of Rav Tzvi Yehuda for more than twenty years, Rav Weiss became one of his closest students. Rav Weiss received Rabbinic Ordination both from Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav and from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. While at Mercaz HaRav, he was part of a team at the Yad HaRav Herzog Talmudic Institute that won the Israel Prize for their work on Mishnaic manuscripts.

Rav Weiss served twenty-seven years in the IDF, twenty years as a combat soldier and reservist, and seven years as a battalion rabbi. He fought in the Six Day War, in the Yom Kippur War, and Operation Shalom HaGalil. Throughout the years, he served alongside religious and secular soldiers alike, bridging an important gap in Israeli society with respect and warmth.

Rav Weiss first became a teacher at Yashlatz, and in 1980 he was designated Rosh Yeshivah. Rav Weiss maintains that the most meaningful aspect of education is direct contact with the students and has therefore always remained a classroom teacher in addition to fulfilling his responsibilities as Rosh Yeshiva. Even today, he teaches in the twelfth grade.

Yashlatz graduates are well represented in Jewish education, including Roshei Yeshivah, professionals and career officers. Already two generations of National Zionist lay and rabbinic leadership have grown up under the tutelage of Rav Weiss.

Having served in the IDF, and since nearly all of his graduates also serve in the IDF, Rav Weiss is no stranger to loss. This role gained a different proportion in March 2008, when a terror attack at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav killed eight and injured many more. Yashlatz lost five students and a recent graduate, and several more students were injured. Rav Weiss’s embrace of his student body and the bereaved families, as well as his translation of his faith to the Israeli public, singled him out as a leader not only in the school, but also in the public sphere.

In August 2009, Rav Weiss recieved the Lifshitz Institute's "Outstanding Educator Award," and he was nominated for the Moscowitz Prize in 2011.

He has written extensively in the Yashlatz publication "Degel Yerushalayim."

Rav Weiss is married to Ahuvah. Together they have five children and also grandchildren. Their home is in the Givat Shaul neighborhood of Jerusalem.