SOY Spends $4,000 on Hundreds of New Siddurim for Wilf Campus

The Student Organization of Yeshiva (SOY), the student council responsible for representing and serving male students in religious matters, has purchased 295 new siddurim for the Rubin Shul and the Klein Beit Midrash. The total cost of the siddurim was approximately $4,000 and was completely funded by a surplus from last year’s SOY budget, according to Dovid Simpser, the President of SOY.

The siddurim, which were bought from Koren Publishers, contain the tefilot for shabbat, and also include a complete chumash. Simpser explained that SOY has been focused on analyzing and improving locations on the Wilf Campus that need enhancement, and recognized a significant lack of siddurim in the Klein Beit Midrash and the Rubin Shul. He estimated that it had been at least 10-15 years since new siddurim were purchased for these areas. Simpser stated that as began working on this project last year as Vice President of SOY with previous SOY President Shua Brick, but it only recently came to fruition.

SOY Vice President Noah Marlowe described a positive feature of the new siddurim that the older ones do not contain. “The Koren siddur has both the tefillah l’shalom ha’medinah and the mishaberach for Tzahal—two important additions that sit in the heart of the Yeshiva University student,” he remarked.

Many students have expressed their support for the new purchase. “The new siddurim were a nice addition to the Klein at 9 experience” said Jacob Naiman, a Yeshiva College Sophomore. “Klein at 9” is a SOY-run shabbat day minyan that takes place in the Klein Beit Midrash. However, others believe that a greater variety of siddurim is necessary. “While I appreciate the shabbat siddurim and the thought that went into getting them, I also would have liked to see siddurim that have weekday use as well,” commented Yeshiva College Sophomore Leib Wiener.

The purchase of the siddurim marks the beginning of a broader initiative by SOY to upgrade the Rubin Shul. Simpser referenced a 2012 Commentator piece entitled “Rubin Shul Needs a Makeover” to emphasize the need for improvements. As mentioned in “Your Voice”, the new newsletter for the Wilf campus Student Government, SOY plans to create more of a beit-midrash environment for the Rubin Shul centered around english and philosophical works.