AviraDeArah:
“YI was not founded by modern orthodoxy, though most of its members and rabbis are such. That being said YI didn’t “produce” rabbonim – yeshivos did. They may have guided some young men and encouraged them to progress, but there is a limit if one’s entire Jewish experience is just young Israel.”
YI was founded by a group of people that wanted a shul where money couldn’t buy aliyos, and young people were included. Where they grew up in the shteibles, they weren’t allowed to daven for the Amud, get an aliyah, etc. They felt left out.
A number of the Rabbanim I referred to earlier, became b’aale teshuva because they went to the Young Israel Talmud Torah and then to the ‘then’ modern orthodox yeshivos. Some of them went to co-ed yeshivos. Today, they are respected Rabbonim and Roshei Yeshivos.
Just a little bit of history:
1. Rabbi Avigdor Miller was the Rov of the YOUNG ISRAEL OF RUGBY from 1945 through 1975. He then moved to Flatbush due to the changing demorgraphics of the neighborhood.
2. Rabbi Miller got his degree from YU and his simicha from RIETS.
3. Some of the men in his learning group included Nosson Meir Wachtfogel, Yehuda Davis, and Mordechai Gifter. They all went on to become notable Haredi rabbis in their own right.
From these points we see that a person is not shaped just by the shul he attends, nor just by the yeshiva he attends. It is shaped by entire environment and people that surround them.
When people today are asked why they wear, for example, a black hat, they reply that it is the mesorah from Europe. Look back at pictures of our gedolim when they were in Europe. Rav Moshe, ZATZAL, was pictured wearing grey hats. Men & bochrim wore caps, not hats.
Look back at pictures of the yearly dinners (1950 – 1970) held by the big yeshivos in Brookyn, and you will see that there was mixed seating.