Michal Tikochinsky (nee Kahana), born in 1969, grew up in Bnei Brak, in a house steeped in Torah and science. Her mother, Ruth Kahana is a mathematician and lecturer in mathematics. Her grandfather, the late Rabbi Chaim Aryeh Kahana, was the head of the Nadborna Yeshiva in Jaffa. Michal studied at the Ulpana Bnei Akiva in Tel Aviv, led by the rabbi and Rebbetzin Magnes. Later she did national service at the Etzion School at Bar Ilan University.

Michal went on shlicut for education in Antwerp, Belgium. After her return, she joined the first class of the Talmudic Institute program at the Matan in Jerusalem. The program is for women in which halachic studies were studied at a level corresponding to the level required for obtaining ordination to the rabbinate. To this day it is the only program in which a woman teaches and prepares women for these exams. As of 2018, she heads the halachic program at the Beit Midrash in Migdal Oz.

She wrote her doctoral dissertation in the Department of Talmud. Her work was printed as a book “Your Laws Learned.” In 2015, after about 15 years as head of the Beit Midrash for Women at Beit Morasha, Michal moved to teach at Herzog College, where she established the Beit Midrash for Women combined with graduate studies in the IDF, allowing women to study Torah for her sake or study Torah as part of their degree studies. A program for halakhic writing at Herzog College, which aims to encourage women to practice halakhic writing and prepare them for it.

Michal also teaches at the Shalem Academic Center, and has a regular Gemara lesson in a number of places, including a regular Los Angeles Zoom class that has been in place for many years. Michal has published many articles in study and halacha, as well as a regular column for Parshas Shavua, and a column dealing with halachic issues in the women’s magazine. Michal was a member of the management of the Beit Hillel Rabbinical Association at the beginning of his career. And she is also a consultant for this organization’s soul-searching site.

In 2021, Michal joined the religious Board of the Tzohar Rabbinical Organization.

Michal lives in Nof Ayalon, married to Yakir, director of the ulpana in Beit Shemesh, is a mother of seven children and a grandmother of two.