From tracking stocks to reading ancient talmudic texts, Jewish day schools in the Greater Bay Area are offering a panoply of programs for the upcoming school year. This September will also mark the debut of a brand new day school, while plans are proceeding to open yet another the following school year.
One of the veterans, Yavneh Day School, located in the Silicon Valley, plans to meld technological advances with traditional Jewish philosophies. Fifth-graders at the school will learn how to set up spreadsheets and track stocks of their own choosing, while incorporating values sometimes absent on Wall Street.
“The theme this year is kavod, or respect,” according to Elizabeth Michael, the K-5 school’s director. “I think that’s the single most important thing that we can teach our kids right now, even in primary schools. No child is immune to the barrage of media violence and crassness.”
The Los Gatos school, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year with a sock hop and dinner event, also intends to bolster its traditional teachings with a heaping helping of Hebrew.
The school’s “Hebrew immersion program” will feature almost all school assemblies and announcements in Hebrew, as well as more advanced Hebrew classes.
However, the ancient language of the Jews will share space with the international language of the millennium.
Parents whose children attend Yavneh Day School can participate in the “Dads at a Distance and Moms at Miles” program.
“We have a lot of parents who are constantly traveling,” said Michael. “So what we did is request that they take along a CD camera, so they can take pictures of wherever they are, and e-mail it to us.
“That way, the kids can download the images, and learn about technology and geography in one fell swoop. And it also builds ties between parents and children and eases the pain of them being so far away.”
Community-building is a popular theme among the Bay Area’s Jewish day schools. Jeanne Zlotnick, program coordinator at Mountain View’s K-8 Orthodox Torah Academy, said this year’s students will study “modern concepts in a traditional Jewish environment.”
As part of the Torah Academy’s expansion of its science program, students will replant deforested areas through local environmental organizations.
“We are going to be concentrating very heavily on bringing science out of the classroom and into Mother Nature,” said Zlotnick.
Community-based themes were also articulated by Steve Tabak, the head of El Cerrito’s K-8 Tehiyah Day School.
Tabak said that helping kids be responsible to themselves and to the larger community undergirds the school’s programming this year.
“We’re really trying to emphasize issues of inclusion and fairness, as well as reaching out to the larger community,” said Tabak. “We want our kids to know that they’re part of the East Bay’s social fabric.”
As of next year, students attending Tehiyah Day School will not only learn about fairness and inclusiveness, but may also be shown the finer points of a full-court press.
Tehiyah’s new gym, which is due to be completed by next summer, was the result of a community-wide fund-raising effort. Besides basketball, the $3 million facility will also double as an assembly hall, theater and conference room.
Oakland’s K-8 Orthodox Hebrew Day School also just acquired a new building.
Rabbi Elie Tuchman, the school’s director, said that over $6 million was raised in the two-year quest for the site, which is due to be completed by September of next year.
“We’re really looking forward to the next few years here,” said Tuchman. “Not only will we have a brand-new facility, but we’ll offer advanced courses, particularly in the sciences.”
The sounds of bulldozers were also heard throughout the year at Fremont’s Atid Day School, which is slated to open Sept. 5.
Atid is one of two K-2 Bay Area Jewish schools to receive matching grants from the Partnership in Jewish Education. The prestigious grant was awarded to just nine schools throughout the country.
“I think the grant really shows the growth of Silicon Valley as a place of Jewish identity,” said Jamie Hyams, Atid’s director. “The great thing about being located in Silicon Valley is that our school isn’t movement aligned — we’re really hoping to draw from a wide cross-section of students.”
Karla Smith, vice president of the Contra Costa Jewish Day School expressed similar sentiments. Smith said that the school, which will open next fall, will have a Judaica and secular teacher for every classroom.
The school has the full support of every rabbi in the area — from Reconstructionist to Orthodox — and will have a matching curriculum, Smith said.
“I think the opening of this school is one of the most significant events in Contra Costa’s Jewish community,” said Smith. “This area has lost significant numbers of Jewish families to the other side of the tunnel because of the absence of strong early Jewish education.
“So, this school will definitely fill a void,” she added.
Marit Shmargad, vice principal of the K-5 Jewish Day School of the North Peninsula, also intends for her school to fill a void — the one that exists in the amount of Jewish education between kids and their parents.
“We have scholars-in-residence coming from all over the country to get parents more actively involved in Jewish education,” said Shmargad. “That’s the missing link in Jewish continuity.
“Some parents are intimidated by Jewish studies, but once you understand what the kids are doing, it’s not as scary anymore.”
Rigorous Jewish education has long been the hallmark of the Hebrew Academy of San Francisco.
Northern California’s only Jewish high school (which runs the gamut from preschool to senior grades) doesn’t deviate much from its yearly academic planning. But when 10 percent of the past three graduating classes attend Ivy League schools, according to Rabbi Pinchas Lipner, the school’s dean, much tinkering isn’t really required.
“We’re really not doing anything too terribly sexy this year,” said Lipner. “It’s pretty much the standard curriculum.”
Of course, the standard curriculum for most seventh- and eight-graders wouldn’t include studying the Talmud in ancient Aramaic.
“This is the way it has been done for thousands of years, so why should we change it?” mused Lipner. “This book of laws has sharpened the minds of Jewish children for centuries…which is precisely why we have so many Jewish lawyers,” he added with a chuckle.
Additionally, Lipner plans on adding another rabbi to the staff, bringing the total number of the school’s rabbis to seven. In fact, on Sept. 17, the school will kick off the new year by hosting a day-long seminar for adults, with the rabbis teaching all aspects of the upcoming Jewish holidays — Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot.
At the South Peninsula’s K-8 Hebrew Day School, the newest component is its director, Avi Schochet.
A Bay Area transplant from Canada, by way of South Africa, Schochet said he hopes to bring some of his worldly perspectives to bear on the school’s programming.
The science club, youth group and sports programs will all be expanded, he said, and there will be a renewed emphasis on hosting talks by graduates of the school who have lived in Israel.
Alumni have always held a strong presence at Brandeis Hillel Day School. A reunion last December drew more than 300 former students, ranging from those who graduated in 1969 to last year’s graduates.
The K-8 school, with a campus in San Francisco and another in Marin, recently received a six-year full term accreditation from the California Association of Independent Schools and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.
“We like to be trendsetters, but won’t be new just for the sake of it,” said Dr. Henry Schreibman, head of school. “That attracts money, attention and press, but things can get lost in the shuffle.”
Schreibman said the upcoming school year will be an amalgamation of traditional Jewish teachings with cutting-edge scholastic philosophies.
Teachers at the K-8 school will incorporate scientific learning techniques pioneered in the past few years.
“You can’t just educate students by reaching out to their analytical side and by ignoring their artistic side or their social side. And many students process things through nature. All those elements have to be incorporated to successfully educate a child,” said Schreibman.
Brandeis Hillel will also be embarking on an endowment campaign to make the school more financially accessible to all potential students.
Lastly, Schreibman said, that while technology is an important tool, Brandeis intends to augment computer programs with traditional Jewish concepts.
“Surfing the Internet by oneself can be very isolating,” Schreibman said. “At Brandeis, we like to think of the school being divided into different villages.
“Every different grade represents a village, and they daven together, eat together and learn together. They all know that they are part of a community, which is what Jewish education is all about.”