Yeshiva University has had a student government since long before it was a University. The earliest recorded student government was formed for the Talmudical Academy high school in 1918 it was referred to as the Students' Organization of the Talmudical Academy High School (S.O.T.A.H.S.) and alternatively as the General Organization (G.O.). The Talmudical Academy High School itself was formed out of the merger of Yeshivas Etz Chaim and Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan in 1915.
Though both of these schools offered some secular education, they existed outside of the educational framework of the American school system at the time. Yeshivas Etz Chaim educated elementary through middle school aged students, preparing them to attend a more advanced Yeshiva. Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan taught high school aged students, providing them with the opportunity to test for Semicha. Semicha candidates at the time would be around 18 to 20 years old.
Along with the merger of the two Yeshivas, there was an emphasis on professionalizing the whole educational system. Yeshivas Etz Chaim would become an accredited college preparatory high school, now called the Talmudical Academy. Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan would begin to only accept high school graduates, making Semicha into a professional degree. Later additions to the Yeshiva curriculum such as Yeshiva College and later the graduate schools would increase the professional education required for a RIETS Semicha making it into a graduate degree.
S.O.T.A.H.S. produced the Talmudical Academy yearbook, the Elchanite which records many of their activities. They arranged various clubs, athletics, and even basic medical services for themselves.
Buried within the oldest surviving Elchanite Yearbook is a reference to the S.O.Y.. During Lag Ba'omer of 1923, the students of the Talmudical Academy and the Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan set out from their crowded building at 301 East Broadway and boarded the Broadway line of the Interborough Rapid Transit company. They traveled all the way up to Van Cortland Park to play their annual game of Baseball. The high school, as usual, beat the S.O.Y. 11-3.
S.O.Y. at the time likely stood for the Students' Organization of the Yeshiva. This reading is based upon its name in 1926, as recorded in Hedenu (our echo) the S.O.Y.'s oldest surviving publication. Hedenu was a bilingual, Hebrew and English newspaper that gradually became a literary magazine over the course of its life. Hedenu never discusses much about the origins of the S.O.Y., though S.O.Y. leadership often used it as a mouthpiece to publish their general communications. An essay written by Solomon Wind, the President of the S.O.Y. in Hedenu's first issue reflects the perception that the S.O.Y. is already old and has peaked in the past. This may be a rhetorical construction on the part of Solomon Wind, however it is much more insecure narrative of student government activity than what can be found in the Elchanite Yearbooks. The December 1928 issue of Hedenu includes a S.O.Y. page that generally discusses what the S.O.Y. has been up to. There is a list of all the people involved with the organization and the committees they serve on, and there are some articles describing the athletic activities of the S.O.Y.. The number of committees and the roles of the positions on the executive board are useful for understanding the abstract constitution and function of the organization in 1928. There were 16 councilmen, and 7 members of the executive committee. There was a president, vice-president, secretary, editor (of Hedenu), Gabai, Dining Room Manager, and Athletic Manager. The S.O.Y. seems to have assisted in running the prayer services, providing extra-curricular programing like guest speakers and athletics, stocking the library, managing some dormitory functions including the mail.
All the issues of Hedenu from 1926 to 1928 were digitized by Otzar Hachochma.
There was a third school operating out of RIETS during the 1920s. That the Teachers' Institute or Beit Midrash Le'Morim. This school had its own student government. The Teachers' Institute was formed in 1917 and merged with RIETS in 1921. Its first yearbook Nir was published in 1925 by the students of the Teacher's Insitute. It was only in the 1925-1926 academic year that the faculty of the school assisted the students in organizing a student government, the Histadrut Talmidei Beit Midrash Le'Morim, or if it had a name in English, the Students Organization of the Teachers' Institute.
This young Students' Organization managed the publication of Nir, the Teachers' Institute Library, and potentially some athletic activities (since there was an athletic manager on the board). It is worth noting that there was no record of athletic activities in the Nir yearbook, so it is unlikely that this position was as active as his counterpart in the S.O.Y. and the S.O.T.A.H.S..
The environment of the student governments of RIETS would change with the formation of Yeshiva College in 1928. Initially the students worked with the faculty to publish an annual journal called Masmid. Both the Masmid 1929 and 1930 were published under this arrangement. It was only in the 1930-1931 academic year that a broader student government organization was formed. This organization was initially called the Students' Organization of Yeshiva College, or S.O.Y.C. They quickly changed the name to the Yeshiva College Students Council, Y.C.S.C., probably because it was so similar to S.O.Y.
As Yeshiva College and the broader school of Yeshiva University grew, the role of the Yeshiva College Student Council transformed over time. I will try to cover some of the more notable policy shifts in future posts.