Elul is a center of culture and learning built around a beit midrash, or House of Study. Elul was founded in Jerusalem - in the month of Elul, fittingly, in 5749 (Autumn 1989) - by a group of Israelis, both secular and religious, men and women, right-wing and left, from across the Israeli political and cultural spectrum. The founders were graduates of universities, higher yeshivas, the Kibbutz movement.