Yeshiva Toras Chaim - Community Outreach

Community Outreach

YTC is responsible for spearheading many of the successful Community Outreach (kiruv) programs in Denver. Yeshiva staff members were giving informal classes in homes on Denver's East Side before 1983, when YTC responded to the needs of the community by becoming the first yeshiva in the United States to employ a full-time kiruv professional. In 1986, Rabbi and Mrs. Wasserman traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they taught Torah and spent Shabbos in an effort to raise Jewish awareness in the Southwest.

Today, Rabbi Yaakov Meyer, the yeshiva's original outreach director, leads a flourishing Aish HaTorah community in Southeast Denver. Rabbi Aaron Y. Wasserman, son of Rabbi Yitzchock Wasserman, heads The Jewish Experience, a multifaceted outreach project in Denver which provides classes, a Sunday school, Shabbatonim in the Rocky Mountains, and many other programs that appeal to a wide variety of Jews.

Yeshivah Toras Chaim also has an active “inreach” program. Merkaz Torah V'Chesed, located in East Denver, serves as a nightly beis medrash open to the community. Merkaz provides a high-level shiur given by its rabbinical director, Rabbi Aver Jacobs, along with chavrusa learning, regular classes and other events organized by program director Rabbi Chaim Sher, an alumnus of Beth Medrash Govoha. Merkaz's regular programming includes women's classes, youth programming, Rabbi Yissocher Frand's weekly parsha shiur (via the Torah Conferencing Network) and annual teshuva drasha, Chol Hamoed sedarim, and an annual Chanukah chagiga.