
Shoshana Silbert, a legendary educator in Israel, has passed away at 88 after a short illness. She taught for decades in schools, yeshivot and seminaries.
Silbert is the widow of Rabbi Abraham Silbert, the first head of the Beer Sheva Yeshiva High School, Ohel Shlomo, and a founder of the Yamit Yeshiva.
The couple had six daughters, and among their sons-in-law are Rabbi Moshe Biel, the Rabbi of the community of Mitzpeh Yericho, Rabbi Amiel Naumberg of the Ariel Yeshiva, Rabbi Emanuel Nesher, a Rabbi of the haredi community in Ofakim, and Rabbi Uri Menachem Oman, the head of a kollel in Yerucham.
Shoshana received multiple awards throughout her career. Emunah Women chose her to represent the organization and receive the President's Award for Volunteering for her dedicated work in absorbing Russain olim.
Born Shoshana Talansky in 1937, she was the youngest of five children of parents who had emigrated from Russia to Brooklyn. She was active in Bnei Akiva from a young age. "It changed my life, there I met my husband Avraham. An extraordinary figure," she said in an interview with the newspaper BeSheva.
In Jerusalem she taught at Ulpana Tzvia and Yeshiva Letz'irim, the yeshiva high school connected to Merkaz Harav Yeshiva , where she taught until a short while ago when she became too ill to continue. "I love the Yeshiva and teaching the students. I know that I am helping the students with their English, and helping them to get a matriculation certificate, without which they cannot succeed in life. Sometimes it is the bare minimum, but I feel it is important, because I want them to progress in their lives. I tell them this all the time," she stated. "Sometimes I meet a very weak student, and I say to him: You don't want to study? Don't study, but don't expect a matriculation certificate."
"When I was a young teacher I was stricter about the level, but with time the Ministry's program changed and gave teachers more leeway. I know that I am more lenient today, it may be a weakness of mine, but it is important to me that they pass, that they succeed."
She shared a story about a student who came to her in ninth grade and announced that he wanted to spend his life in a yeshiva and therefore did not need English. His parents pressured him, even his grandmother, but he did not want to study English. "I tutored him personally. He came to my house, studied, progressed, and passed the matriculation with flying colors. To this day I follow his life, and it was good to see that he was convinced and became successful [in learning]. Later he himself convinced younger students to apply themselves to their studies.''