The Wisconsin Institute for Torah Study (WITS), also known as Yeshivas Ohr Yechezkel, is an

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

school for boys (''

yeshiva A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are st ...

'') in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, and an affiliate of

Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim (also known as the Rabbinical Seminary of America) is an Orthodox Yeshiva in the United States, based in Kew Gardens Hills, Queens, New York. It is primarily an American, Lithuanian-style Talmudic Yeshiva. The Yeshiva is ...

History

WITS was founded in 1980 by Rabbi Yehuda Cheplowitz, Rabbi Moshe Dov Harris, and Rabbi Raphael Wachsman. WITS exterior

In 1984, WITS moved from Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin to its current facility, a Tudor-style mansion in Milwaukee’s Upper East Side overlooking Lake Michigan. The mansion was built by the lumber baron Henry M. Thompson in 1913 and designed by

Alexander C. Eschweiler Alexander Chadbourne Eschweiler (August 10, 1865 – June 12, 1940) was an American architect with a practice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He designed both residences and commercial structures. His eye-catching Japonism, Japonist pagoda design for f ...

. It had previously been home to St. Mary's Ecumenical Retreat and Conference Center, a convent and retreat center for Catholic and Episcopalian nuns. In the late 1980s,

David Draiman David Michael Draiman ( he, דוד מיכאל דריימן; born March 13, 1973) is an American singer and songwriter. Noted for his distorted, operatic, baritone voice and percussive singing style, he is best known as the lead vocalist of the ...

, frontman for the rock band Disturbed, briefly attended the high school. In 1995, WITS sought to expand the size of its facilities three-fold by building a “30,000-square-foot addition, which

ould Ould is an English surname and an Arabic name ( ar, ولد). In some Arabic dialects, particularly Hassaniya Arabic, ولد‎ (the patronymic, meaning "son of") is transliterated as Ould. Most Mauritanians have patronymic surnames. Notable p ...

include a gym, classrooms, offices, a dining room and worship hall,” but neighbors voiced concerns about zoning and feared the expansion would tarnish the historic character of the building and the neighborhood. After changes were made to the plans ensuring that the historic look of the building would be maintained, including building the new section out of similarly-colored limestone blocks as the old historic building, and ensuring that the new construction would not be visible from the street, Milwaukee’s Historic Preservation Commission approved the expansion, which was opened in March 2000. Legal expenses and extra costs to reinforce the ground beneath the building, however, reduced the overall size of the project to 23,000 square feet, which, in the end, included “nine new classrooms, a state-of-the-art computer lab and a science lab,” but no gymnasium as originally planned. On June 17, 2010, a small electrical fire on the third floor of the new building caused an evacuation of the building and minor damage. The building has since been renovated and returned to full use. Rabbi Raphael Wachsman, z"l, one of the founding deans, died on February 6, 2016.

Academics

WITS is divided into two programs: a

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

program and a post-high-school

Beis Medrash A ''beth midrash'' ( he, בית מדרש, or ''beis medrash'', ''beit midrash'', pl. ''batei midrash'' "House of Learning") is a hall dedicated for Torah study, often translated as a "study hall." It is distinct from a synagogue (''beth knes ...

program. The high school program includes both a rigorous Judaic studies curriculum, and a competitive college-preparatory secular curriculum. Beyond the classroom, the school emphasizes strong rebbi-student relationships, mentorships, personal development and good ''midos''. The Beis Medrash program offers three levels of "Iyun Shiurim" daily (in-depth Talmudic sermons), and focuses on strong rebbi-student relationships, mentorships with high school students, and continued personal development.

References

External links

School web siteGreatschools.com
{{authority control Private high schools in Wisconsin Modern Orthodox Jewish day schools in the United States