For the first time in recent history, an additional Yeshiva minyan for the Yom Kippur Services was held, aside from the services that convened in the Main Bais Medrash and Rubin Shul. The additional minyan met in the Shenk Shul in the Schottenstein Center, on the corner of 185th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. The new minyan came as a surprise to many at Yeshiva, as the synagogue has not been used for regular prayers in many years. Many students also wondered why the Yeshiva community split into multiple facilities, on a day that has traditionally attempted to unite everyone in one place.

Until this year, Yeshiva's uptown Yom Kippur services had been carried out in the Main Bais Medrash. Before Yom Kippur, volunteers would remove the tables for learning, replace them with a large numbers of chairs, and arrange the Bais Medrash in order to allow seating for both men and women. Even with these adjustments, however, the room had always been cramped on Yom Kippur, with little space to move. Over the past few years, the number of people who have come to the minyan - including alumni, students, and teachers - has packed the room to its capacity, and then some.

This year, Yeshiva projected that the number of people coming to the minyan would be greater than ever. Responding to this projection, Rabbi Eliezer Zwickler, as well as several other members of the RIETS Kollel, and undergraduate student leadership proposed that the Shenk Shul be opened to create an alternate minyan. Mashgiach Ruchani Rabbi Yosef Blau approved the idea and attempted to attract members of the Yeshiva to switch to the other minyan.

The Shenk Shul itself is in an old building, dating back to the early 1940s. Originally, it housed a yeshiva day school. As the Jewish community in Washington Heights shrank, the school eventually closed its doors. Approximately twenty years ago, the building was given to Yeshiva, and students and faculty began using it for various programs and classes. The segment of the building devoted to the shul, however, remained closed. It was first opened for daily use this year, in order to create a new bais medrash for the Stone Bais Medrash Program.

On Yom Kippur, roughly one hundred and twenty five people, men and women, davened in the Shenk Shul, easing conditions in the main Bais Medrash. Rabbi Blau davened at the main Beis Midrash but went to the Shenk Shul to speak before the Mussaf Service in order to create a "slightly more official atmosphere" in the new setting.

Now that the shul has been reopened, it is possible that many more programs will take place there. It is already being used as a bais medrash for the BMP Program, which, according to Rabbi Blau, was something the school desperately needed. While no official events have been announced, Rabbi Blau did promise that "the shul may soon be used for other affairs as well."