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This university helps Orthodox students make it big without compromising their religion
US Air Force judge advocate Rena Winick Weinstein wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to do with her life when she graduated high school.
As an Orthodox Jew, Weinstein was certain of one thing: She wanted to go to college in a place that would support her religious lifestyle — and help her find her professional path. So she enrolled at the Lander College for Women, a part of the Touro University System, designed to help observant Jews get an education without compromising their religious values.
Weinstein, now 25, ended up finding the spark for her unconventional career at Touro: She became interested in national security after taking a college counterterrorism course. She dabbled in a variety of pursuits after graduating, including selling real estate and learning Arabic, before deciding to study law at Georgetown University. She eventually landed a job in the US Air Force as an attorney known as a JAG, or judge advocate general.
“It was very helpful for me, now that I’m in an environment where there’s very little religion, to have that foundation of strong academics and a strong religious environment while in college,” Weinstein said, reflecting on her experience. “That was the cushion that allowed me to branch off into the secular world.”
These days Weinstein, who recently married, works at a fighter jet base in England, where she’s chief of international and operational law, dealing with issues ranging from NATO readiness to military court martials.
“I’ve always been patriotic, so I felt it was important to show appreciation for the gifts we’ve received as Jews in America by joining the military,” said Weinstein, who previously spent a year and a half at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas with the 22 nd Air Refueling Wing. “I wanted to do more than sitting around at a think tank, talking about patriotism and values.”
Founded in 1971 to provide an environment where Orthodox Jews in New York could get a college education without foregoing their religious commitments, Touro is now a sprawling university system with over 19,000 students from many faith traditions spanning 35 different schools and spread out over four countries.
Yet Touro remains a place that not only accommodates Orthodox Jewish observance but embraces it. Classes are suspended on Jewish holidays, every campus offers kosher food and other special features are available, such as Sabbath-observant residency programs for medical students.
Jason Appleson, managing director at Prudential Global Investment Management in Newark, New Jersey, credits his education not just with giving him the skills he needed to succeed but also the supportive religious environment he needed to thrive. (William Taufic)
“Throughout its 52-year history, Touro has been committed to making sure students succeed at the highest level professionally while upholding their Jewish values,” said Touro’s president, Dr. Alan Kadish, who has led Touro for the last 14 years, following the tenure of founding president Bernard Lander. “Working to create a better world and society is part of our mission.”
A variety of Touro alumni now working in high-powered fields said that going to a school that cultivated their professional skills and supported their religiosity gave them the early-career nurturing they needed to succeed as Orthodox Jews in the professional world.
Regina Davydova, who was born in Uzbekistan and immigrated to New York when she was 8, became interested in pursuing a career in medicine when she was a teenager. But as an Orthodox Jew, Davydova worried about how she would balance a demanding career with her religious observance and desire to raise a family.
She enrolled in the physician’s assistant program at Touro’s School of Health Sciences, which she said help set her up for success: She got a job at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center following graduation, only two weeks after getting married. Sixteen years on, Davydova, now 38, is the chief PA of the hospital’s plastic surgery division — and has a thriving Orthodox family.
“It’s incredible how we can rearrange skin and tissue to reconstruct any defects, and make the patient feel and look whole again,” Davydova said of her job. “It’s not just aesthetics, like most people think. We also do a lot of reconstruction in breast cancer or head and neck cancers.”
Like Davydova, Jason Appleson also chose a college based in large part on where he’d feel comfortable as an Orthodox Jew. At Touro’s Lander College for Men, the dual curriculum allows both for yeshiva study and obtaining professional and academic degrees.
“I liked the yeshiva-style program at Lander, the close-knit learning and the small size of the school,” said Appleson, who graduated in 2008 with a degree in finance.
“When it came to looking for jobs, I got a lot of attention,” he added. “At Lander, it was more about, ‘Let’s connect you with real people.’ Ultimately, that’s how I got my first job at Alliance Bernstein, through networking.”
After a stint at Alliance Bernstein, Appleson joined the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, followed by nine years at Chicago-based PT Asset Management. Now 38 and married with three children, Appleson is a managing director at Prudential Global Investment Management in Newark, New Jersey, where he leads the municipal bond team.
He credits his education at Lander College not just with giving him the skills he needed to succeed, but also the supportive religious environment he needed to thrive.
“One of the most difficult things if you go to a non-Jewish school is that no one’s working around your schedule,” said Appleson, a native of Nashville. “At Lander, you can celebrate Jewish holidays comfortably. Religion is not just a culture, it’s a lifestyle. I didn’t have to worry about kashrut or Shabbat.”
Regina Davydova, who got a job at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center straight out of the physician’s assistant program at Touro University’s School of Health Sciences, is now chief PA of the hospital’s plastic surgery division. (Marko Dashev)
Touro’s president said Shabbat observance isn’t a disadvantage, but an asset both in school and in professional life.
“By and large, people can succeed as observant Jews in almost any area, but the problem of time management is mitigated by the restorative effects of Shabbos and holidays,” Kadish said. “It does mean that in certain professions you might be working on Sundays when you otherwise might not be. But I firmly believe the reset really helps.”
Florida native Israel Ackerman went to the Lander College for Men, availing himself of the night classes and flexible schedule so he could complete the rigorous pre-med science program while spending his mornings studying in yeshiva. Then he went to Touro’s medical school, New York Medical College, in Valhalla, New York.
“Specifically in the field of medicine, it can be a struggle to find institutions where you can observe Shabbat and Jewish holidays during busy hospital rotations,” Ackerman said.
After graduating, he did his fellowship in ophthalmology at the University of Texas-Southwestern and now works in Dallas as an eye surgeon.
Moshe Serwatien, a student at New York Medical College who did his undergraduate studies at Lander, said the intensity at Lander both of the pre-med academics and his own yeshiva studies prepared him well for the demands of medical school. Faculty at Touro also helped him with the medical school application process.
“My rabbis at Lander held me to a very high level of academic excellence and intellectual standards, so I was quite prepared for the rigors of medical school,” Serwatien said.
Ultimately, many alumni say, the seeds for their professional success were planted at Touro.
“My time at Lander,” said Appleson, the bond manager, “prepared me to work with some of the best and brightest in the industry.”
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.