Sh’or Yoshuv officially certified as college in New York State

In a last minute scramble, Sh’or Yoshuv managed to confirm its status as a college in New York State, to retain state funding for their students.

An application for TAP was accidentally filed with the name Sh’or Yoshuv Institute rather than the acceptable name of Sh’or Yoshuv Rabbinical College, noted Mrs. Sharon Jacobowitz, the registrar there. She noted that the school goes by both names legally, and with the designation of “college” is eligible for the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), New York State funding for post secondary schools.

“They refused to give us aid unless we formally call it the Sh’or Yoshuv Rabbinical College,” explained Jacobowitz. “We didn’t have documentation (for New York State), and had to do a name change, file the legal name as Sh’or Yoshuv Rabbinical College (SYRC), to get an official certificate of assumed name. We had to go through the process; it is very time consuming.” She noted that the “bureaucratic procedure” did not take that long in the Department of State but was taking a longer time in the processing through the Board of Education. “It’s a very lengthy procedure,” she said. The problem was that “TAP gave us a deadline for when we need the assumed name and if we didn’t hit that deadline we wouldn’t be eligible for TAP. There was no way that would happen that quickly, it was not going to be done in time,” she said. “That’s when we turned to Assemblyman (Harvey) Weisenberg’s office. I spoke to Marie; she was very nice, extremely professional and very helpful.”

“She pushed it through,” continued Jacobowitz, “but when she saw that it wasn’t going to happen in the time frame, she asked Weisenberg to call and within days we had the certificate of assumed name. Without that we wouldn’t have gotten TAP.” She said this happened during July and August. She noted that students graduate from Sh’or Yoshuv with a first Talmudic Degree, a Bachelor of Arts degree, and use that degree for law school or business. “We have a boy who went to Harvard Law School after that degree,” she said.

Sh’or Yoshuv’s story was highlighted by Rebbitzen Rivka Wakslak, of the Young Israel of Long Beach. She noted that Assemblyman Weisenberg also facilitated a grant of $4.9 million from HEAL-NY, the Health Care Efficiency and Affordability Law, signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo as part of last year’s budget.

Rabbi Dr. Chaim Wakslak, Rav of the Young Israel of Long Beach and Clinical Director of the Hebrew Academy of Children (HASC) in Brooklyn, pointed out his personal experience with Weisenberg, indicating that “Weisenberg has been a strong advocate for the developmentally disabled for many years. He has helped shape the programs and policies of the state of New York so that today, New York offers the best programs and services to that population of any state that I am aware of. New York has the highest level of funding and the most comprehensive programs and the most protective legislation – all directed at helping this population achieve the highest possible quality of life.”

“We help a lot of people,” noted Weisenberg (A.D. 20 and deputy speaker pro tem in the State Assembly). “The sad truth is that nobody understands that the job involves working day and night. It’s public service, trying to help people, with quality of life and dignity.” He stressed that he was a special education teacher and principal for 20 years in East Meadow and that he spoke in Washington about his bill to put defibrillators in schools.

Weisenberg explained that he called to help Sh’or Yoshuv because he is “proud of the people who graduate from this facility; they make it a better world. It is my privilege to help. I love the Rabbi there; you can feel the climate of love between the faculty, staff, parents and students. They bring that dedication to society and make the world a better place.”