Baltimore's fifth graders got their first Gemaras, and their grandfathers danced

More than 300 parents and grandparents filled Torah Institute of Baltimore on a Sunday in mid-October to watch the school's fifth graders open their first Gemaras. The Haschalas Gemara was held for all four fifth-grade classes at once, Baltimore Jewish Life reported on October 21, 2026.

The ceremony was simple. Each boy was handed his own new Gemara. The boys then danced with their fathers and grandfathers. After that, every family went back to the boy's classroom and learned his first Gemara together, at the desks where he will spend the coming year.

In most chadorim, fifth grade is the year a boy moves from Chumash and Mishnayos into Gemara. Schools across the country mark that move with a gathering of its own. Some put fathers and sons side by side in the bais medrash for a first session. Others pair the boys with older students, or hand out new shtenders. The idea is the same everywhere: the boy is starting the learning he can carry for the rest of his life, and his family is there to see it.

At Torah Institute the speakers gave the boys words of encouragement. They were the menahel, Rabbi Shimon Hirsch; the sgan menahel, Rabbi Nosson Adlin; and Harav Yosef Berger. The mothers and grandmothers heard from Rabbi Raphael Schochet, the cheder's chief executive.

The school, also known as Yeshivas Kochav Yitzchok, has deep roots. According to a 2019 report in Yeshiva World News, it was founded in 1952 by Harav Yitzchok Sternhell and a group of Holocaust survivors. It was first called Shearis Hapleitah, the name the survivors gave themselves, and its founders set out to rebuild in America what had been destroyed in Europe.

The cheder started with 15 students. By 2019 it had grown past 700. That year more than 1,300 students, parents and grandparents together finished all of Shas Mishnayos in under an hour at the school's first Mishnayos-Shasathon, Yeshiva World News reported. Today Torah Institute is a boys' school running from preschool through eighth grade on Rosewood Lane in Owings Mills, according to the Center for Jewish Education's Baltimore school listing. Enrollment is now above 930.

Those numbers are why the school is building. In an update a day after the ceremony, Baltimore Jewish Life reported that walls for the cheder's new building are going up and rooms are starting to take shape. Another part of the parking lot has been paved, and work has begun on the elevator shaft and stairwells. Footings have been dug and poured for a new gymnasium, and rock drilling is under way for later phases.

The administration thanked parents and the wider Baltimore community for their patience during construction and said more milestones are expected in the coming months. No completion date or cost was published.

How we reported this: based on two Baltimore Jewish Life reports published Oct. 21 and Oct. 22, 2026, a 2019 Yeshiva World News report on the school's history, and the Center for Jewish Education Baltimore school listing. The exact date of this year's ceremony, the building's cost and its completion date were not published. Schools with a milestone to share can reach us at [email protected].