Dozens of 12th-grade students who will study at a new branch of Yeshivat Bnei David in the northern Samaria settlement of Ganim took part on Monday in a first bonding day ahead of the yeshiva’s opening on 1 Elul. The group included recent high school graduates who plan to enroll next year, along with students in their second and third years.
During the visit, the students met the yeshiva staff, joined introductory and group-building activities, and heard about the vision for the new study hall. A festive Talmud completion, led by student Matan Cohen, marked the first such ceremony in Ganim since the settlement was evacuated in the 2005 disengagement, 21 years ago.
The new yeshiva will operate as a branch of Yeshivat Bnei David in Eli, headed by Rabbi Yehuda Sadan. Rabbi Neria Bolk will lead the Ganim campus. He said, “With God’s help, we will rise to Ganim at the start of Elul, open the doors of the study hall, and grow a place of Torah that will be a source of light and blessing for renewing northern Samaria.”
Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan told the students, “You are making history.” He said the region was fulfilling a vow to return to northern Samaria and would build “a huge settlement and a splendid yeshiva” in Ganim. The yeshiva is expected to accept its first class in the coming school year, as part of a broader effort to renew Jewish settlement and establish educational and religious institutions in the area.
