After graduating from Yeshiva University with a BA in English Literature, Rav Jonathan Bailey studied for five years in Yeshivat Hamivtar, under Rav Riskin and Rav Brovender. He received his smicha from Hamivtar and Rav Zalman Nechemiya Goldberg in 2001, and in 2002 returned to the States to teach at Yeshiva Rambam High School in Baltimore, Maryland where he also joined the Torah Mi’Tzion Kollel and taught adult education classes in the community. He made Aliyah in 2006, continuing his teaching in multiple institutions, including Yeshivat Eretz Hatzvi, Midreshet Lindenbaum, Midreshet Emunah V’Omanut and Midreshet HaRova. Rav Bailey has worked full-time at Midreshet HaRova since 2014, teaching a myriad of classes including Gemara, Chumash, Pirkei Avot, Contemporary Halacha and a course in comparative literature. He lives in Yerushalayim with his wife and two children.
Rav Bailey’s teaching style focuses on challenging his students to think and self-discover, two ingredients he believes are vital to creating a true love of and dedication to Torah, its values and its continued meaningfulness in their lives. Inspired by his background in English Literature, Rav Bailey’s primary method of study is close textual analysis, encouraging his students to consider each word of a primary text so as to discover and understand its deepest meaning. Alumni of Rav Bailey’s classes, with whom he maintains close contact, consistently tell him that his approach, and the fundamental skills they learned in his shiurim, have continued to yield meaningful results for them in their lives after HaRova, both in their Jewish and secular studies.
