About Us - Etta Ehrman Kossowsky z.l. (1969-95)

One week after Tu BiShevat, many in Bet Shemesh were dismayed to learn that their friend Etta, a young woman of twenty-five, full of life and fun, had succumbed to Hodgkins disease.

Etta was the youngest child of the late Rabbi Dr. A. Ehrman, rabbi, scholar and editor of the Talmud El Am. She was born in Israel, but lived in England until the end of her schooling. Dedicated to religious Zionism, Etta came back to Jerusalem to live and study. She married Michi, the son of two Rabbinical families, Kossowsky and Twerski. Together they encouraged young people to look anew at Judaism: with a programme for teenagers from abroad, Tochnit Shabbat; in projects for students at the Hebrew University Synagogue and at the Israel Centre in Jerusalem.

At that time, a small group of some half a dozen women were learning parashat ha shavua. Etta joined them and found it very valuable to call on a friend, more knowledgeable than she was, to learn with her in preparation for any shiur she was about to give. She continued with this learning to the end; when she was confined to her bed in Hadassah hospital her shiur group came to learn there. For much of the next three years the Hodgkins took over, but Etta continued a highly active life, many who knew her did not realise that she was ill.

When Etta died, her friends thought that women learning Torah in the way that Etta had found valuable would surely benefit other women. The Etta Kossowsky Study Groups came into being. The Etta Kossowsky Fund supports the organisation and running of these groups. The aim of the fund is to enable women in Israel, young and old, to further their knowledge of Torah, in the belief that Jewish family life as well as Jewish society as a whole will surely reap benefit from an increased understanding of Torah among women.

As we look back over the years we see how the Fund's modest activities have developed and the positive contribution this has made to the Jewish community. Ten years of learning have considerable raised the level of the shiurim and topics studied range from Na"Ch, Chassidut, Mitzvot, Tefilla and Gemara.