PHOTOS BY DANIEL LIPPITT
JULIE EDGAR STAFF WRITER
of Study
The Kollel in Oak Park
is expanding to
accommodate the
growing Orthodox
community.
The Kollel in Oak Park is undergoing an ambitious
expansion to accommodate a growing body of students.
hick plastic is stretched over high, arched to the addition in the rear of the
windows. Beneath are the exposed beams building. A menorah burns brightly
and new walls of what will become a new beit in the gray light of the morning,
midrash, study, with separate areas for men and which spills onto scattered lecterns
women and classrooms devoted to adult educa- and floor-to-ceiling shelves bursting
with books.
tion.
Rabbi Eliezer Beer said the place
The project, a 3,200-sqnsre-foot addition, will
sometimes
gets so crowded, people are forced to
turn the Kollel Institute of Advanced Learning
stand. That's one reason for the expansion.
from a house to a manor.
Another is the number of classes the Kollel of-
The Kollel, or in rough translation, "a gather-
ing," was started 23 years ago by members of the fers to senior citizens and retirees, teachers and
wood Yeshiva in Lakewood, N.J., in an or- young students. The Kollel supports a core group
Lake
dinary
house on Lincoln, just east of Greenfield. of 12 to 15 full-time students, but it also accom-
4
modates afternoon study for working people, re-
„Ai It is devoted to post-graduate talmudic studies.
On the other side of a panel wall that will be tirees and older adults.
Rabbi Beer said the Kollel also attracts Jews
removable in case of crowds, students are buried
in Torah and Talmud, oblivious to the chill wind who are becoming more serious about their reli-
that occasionally escapes through a door leading gious studies — a growing group.
'here are many people thirsty for knowledge,
spirituality," he said.
Irving Ernst, a member of Young Israel who
studies at the Kollel nearly every day, remarked
that it is "the best minyan in the whole of Michi-
gan. I just pray to God to be able to give them a
hundred times more."
Construction of the addition began Aug. 1 and
should be finished by Passover, Rabbi Beer said.
The new wing is being financed by donations from
students and philanthropists. 0