[Avodah] Coeducational

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Jul 16, 2021 at 08:47:19PM +0000, Joseph Kaplan via Avodah wrote:
> Many say that RYBS, in starting Maimonides, did not agree, and, in fact,
> did argue it was a lechatchila and desirable in elementary and high
> school. I understand that some say he too believed it was a bedieved,
> but there's lots of scholarship for the lechatchila side...

FWIW, my own take after reading his two letters to Rabbi Leonard Rosenfeld
(who at the time ran HILI) found in R Nati Helfgott's Community, Covenant
and Comittment is that RYBS believed it was a lekhat-chillah response
to a bedi'eved situation.

He would have been happier had the need not come up, but since it did,
avoiding making Maimonides co-ed would have been a mistake.

(There is such an approach to RYBS's attitude toward Modernity in general:
Judaism was stronger and superior in Brisk. But remaining there isn't
an option. If we are forced to deal with the outside world, confronting
it and the resulting dialectic head-on is superior to trying to stay in
a bubble.)

This is aside from RYBS strongly objecting to the proposal that YU save
money by combining YC's and Stern's campuses. Even though I presume he
realized this would cost the women of Stern in terms of depth of their
Jewish education.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Zion will be redeemed through justice,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   and her returnees, through righteousness.
Author: Widen Your Tent
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF