August 22, 2025 | 28 Av 5785
Candlelighting 7:49 p.m. | Havdalah 8:48 p.m. | Vol. 68, No. 34 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org
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Pitt’s Working Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh, Lubavitch Center resolve dispute Group on Antisemitism readies for fall semester
NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Embracing AI
By David Rullo | Senior Staff Writer
Educators change their tune
T Later the same year, Rabbi Yossi Rosenblum was appointed Yeshiva’s new CEO and head of school, succeeding Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld. Rosenfeld remains the head shaliach of Chabad of Western Pennsylvania and the rabbi of the Lubavitch Center. As the two organizations worked to implement their Perpetual Cooperation Agreement, disagreements arose that were brought to a rabbinic arbitrator, according to Chaim Oster, Yeshiva’s board president. Most of those issues were resolved, but several remained, including a bequest valued at $560,000. When the arbitrator resigned in 2023, Yeshiva Schools wanted the remaining matters to be decided by a secular court while the Lubavitch Center believed Jewish law required the matters to be brought before a beis din, or Jewish court. Ultimately, Merkos listed Yeshiva’s unwillingness to appear before a beis din as the reason it delisted the school. Yeshiva filed for injunctive relief in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, alleging that the Perpetual Cooperation Agreement and its addendum are in full effect and sought to specify: the sale of 2142 Wightman from the Lubavitch Center to Yeshiva Schools for $300,000; certain donations should be given to Yeshiva by the Lubavitch Center; and
hose hoping the University of Pittsburgh’s Working Group on Antisemitism had already provided the school’s administration with recommendations to improve campus safety for Jewish students might be disappointed. Announced in December 2024, the working group was created to replace an ad hoc committee on antisemitism proposed during a Nov. 16 faculty assembly meeting, which met immediate push back from the university’s Equity, Inclusion and AntiDiscrimination Advocacy Committee. At that time, Jennifer Murtazashvili, director of the university’s Center for Governance and Markets, who was selected as co-chair of the ad hoc committee, was announced as the co-chair of the working group. Her position was later changed to vice chair when Kathleen Blee, the former dean of Pitt’s Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, was announced as the new chair at a March 20 Senate Council meeting. While some might have expected visible signs of the group’s work as students arrived on campus for the fall semester, Blee said that was never the intention. “We convened at the end of the spring semester and we had several meetings then. We had several meetings over the summer and now, starting with the fall semester, we’ll be meeting even more intensively,” she said. The working group, she said, includes students who weren’t available during the summer, but now that campus life is back in full swing, the intention is to “double our efforts in the fall and spring semesters, once everyone is back in place.” Blee said she is unable to discuss what the group accomplished over the summer because, like most Pitt committees, the proceedings are confidential.
Please see Yeshiva, page 16
Please see Pitt, page 16
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eshiva Schools of Pittsburgh is once again affiliated with Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch. The school was delisted by the organization earlier this year and, as a result, lost its affiliation with Chabad of Western Pennsylvania. According to an Aug. 6 announcement, Yeshiva Schools will retain its existing “board-operated governance structure with added oversight to ensure that it remains dedicated to fulfilling its mission of operating a dual curriculum Jewish day school rooted in the fundamental tenets of Chabad-Lubavitch.” The roots of the tension between the Yeshiva Schools and the Lubavitch Center go back to 2019, when the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh requested a governance audit of the school. At its conclusion, auditors recommended Yeshiva Schools decouple from the Lubavitch Center. In July 2020, the organizations signed a Perpetual Cooperation Agreement, which was amended in 2021 to address several issues not in the original agreement, such as the ownership of sefer Torahs and religious books, insurance, security, janitorial service, building maintenance, operation of the mikvah and the sale of a dormitory.
Photo by Lauren Rosenblatt
Fall Arts Preview begins on page 8
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