J. reached out to the Bay Area’s two Jewish high schools — Jewish Community High School of the Bay in San Francisco and the Kehillah School in Palo Alto — and asked graduating seniors to respond to this question: “How has your Jewish education shaped who you are today?” The students’ essays are thoughtful, personal and vastly different. Mazel tov to the Class of 2025!
Jewish text studies strengthened my skills as a problem solver
Zalman Zucker
When I began school, I thought my dyslexia and dysgraphia would limit all aspects of my education. While my twin brother enrolled at Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School, I entered a program for students with language-based learning differences. He happily began learning Hebrew as I struggled to read and write in English. At family seders, my brother confidently sang the Four Questions and read from the haggadah. These skills seemed out of my reach.
However, in third grade, I was able to join my brother at Hausner, where I was intrigued by the stories and discussions in my Jewish studies classes and found that I enjoyed studying Hebrew. I decided to further my Jewish education in high school. At the Kehillah School, I developed a deep love for the process of Jewish text study: translating and examining the Mishnah and Gemara, the most important rabbinic texts in Judaism, and applying their teachings to the modern day in my Moot Beit Din elective.
While this training may seem esoteric, it benefited me in multiple ways academically. Learning to follow and develop logical chains of reasoning directly applies to mathematics, computer science and rhetoric and has made me a better problem-solver, coder, debater and writer. I’ve applied my close reading and interpretive skills to studying poetry and fiction. And beyond satisfying my intellectual interests, Jewish text study connects me to my heritage and tradition. I participate in an academic and religious endeavor that has survived for millennia throughout the Jewish diaspora.
My learning differences initially made my Jewish education daunting: Did a student with dyslexia and dysgraphia need the additional demands of religious and Hebrew study? I now appreciate how text and language studies sharpened my thinking and taught me to embrace and enjoy challenges. I treasure my ability to continue my family’s religious and scholarly traditions.
Zalman Zucker is graduating from the Kehillah School. He is passionate about literature, history and judo. He will attend Columbia University in the fall. He hasn’t declared a major yet but is leaning toward English.
I connected to the world through Jewish studies
Keira Gerstley
Throughout high school, Jewish studies has been a bridge — connecting my identity to my surrounding world, my generation to others and my own beliefs to modern dilemmas.
I entered Jewish Community High School with a limited Jewish education. I knew the basics of Shabbat, observed most Jewish holidays and generally kept kosher, but I didn’t know the history of these customs. My education at JCHS in fields ranging from Tanach and Talmud to Jewish thought and ethics has been pivotal in enabling me to grow into who I am today.
In my Tanach classes, I learned to appreciate the multidimensional nature of Scripture. My peers and I dove into commentaries that attempted to reconcile textual discrepancies and wrote our own theories for why certain gaps existed. As a result, I’ve gained a deep appreciation for close reading.
In my Gemara and ethics classes, I’ve interrogated loaded topics including civil damages, assisted suicide and abortion. Exploring the sages’ disputes and coupling modern dilemmas with Gemara challenged me to recognize the continuity and gaps between philosophies in an evolving society, but also elicited in me a deep appreciation for the rationale of our culture’s founding thinkers.
And perhaps most significantly, the opportunities I’ve had to learn about the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been crucial for me to process my own beliefs in tandem with those of others. I’ve learned the value of sitting in profound uncertainty and hearing opinions that are different from my own.
Jewish studies, now a core component of my identity, has taught me that connection across differences, beliefs and time is crucial to building a vibrant, interconnected society. As I move to college and beyond, I am eager to deepen my Jewish learning, always finding connections with my secular education, social justice and the ever-changing world.
Keira Gerstley is graduating from Jewish Community High School of the Bay. She will attend Yale University and major in physics and Jewish studies.
I learned that resilience is one of our key traits
Mayan Moses
One seemingly small choice I could only have made at a Jewish high school has changed the course of my life.
As an Israeli who moved to the U.S. at the age of 1, I grew up keeping kosher, speaking Hebrew and celebrating Jewish holidays at home. Yet I rarely engaged with the wider Jewish community. I never belonged to a synagogue or had a bat mitzvah.
After attending public schools through middle school, my parents and I recognized that I was disconnected from Judaism and thought the Kehillah School would be a good fit for high school. At the beginning of ninth grade, I decided to join Siddur Minyan, a small group that meets weekly to daven Shacharit. Week after week, I struggled to follow the prayers and learn the tunes. I felt that davening would never be as natural for me as it was for my friends.
However, the connections I made in Siddur Minyan motivated me to pursue more Jewish learning. I attended Camp Ramah Northern California, joined Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto and scheduled a late bat mitzvah for July 2023.
While preparing with Rabbi Sarah Graff at Kol Emeth, I closely read the text of Parashat Va’etchanan, which contains the first paragraph of the Shema. In my d’var, I discussed the Shema as a symbol of Jewish resilience: Rabbi Akiva’s last words before being martyred were the Shema; children living in Christian orphanages were identified as Jews after the Holocaust because they recognized the Shema; Bene Israel Indian Jews, my ancestors, preserved the Shema for millennia.
My bat mitzvah helped me gain a deeper understanding of the role of resilience in Jewish continuity. The ceremony became my way of officially making a commitment to pass the Jewish “baton” to the next generation.
For four years, I’ve stuck with Siddur Minyan even as its membership dwindled and its faculty leadership changed. I often wonder how my life would look had that overwhelmed freshman succumbed to confusion, left the minyan and disengaged from religious Judaism. Kehillah’s Siddur Minyan taught me that resilience is the key skill that I need to play my part in the preservation of our people’s heritage. Now, whenever I lead services, I keep this in mind.
Mayan Moses is graduating from the Kehillah School. She is a Bronfman Fellow and will attend Brown University, where she plans to major in physics.
My education offered security, joy and resolve
Daniel Schweig
There is an idea in Judaism called “chizuk,” which relates to the power of the community to uplift the spirit and resolve of the individual. I think that chizuk is one of the greatest gifts I have been given through my Jewish education.
My whole academic life has been within Jewish private schools. To many this would seem like a bubble or a restriction, but it gave me the freedom to be my true self in relation to my Jewish identity.
In my elementary and middle schools, there were never more than 20 kids in each grade, many of whom were also my friends at synagogue. At this point even in a larger high school environment at JCHS, there are some people I’ve gone through all my years of schooling with. Living in this overlapping community has allowed me to form incredibly close and personal relationships with peers who have become like family. In addition, sharing a common Jewish identity with my classmates has given me an underlying sense of security around my own Jewishness that allows me to feel fluent and able to make ongoing decisions about what it means to me.
Even more important than a personal sense of security is the joy I have experienced in my Jewish education. Being able to celebrate holidays, pray and learn every single day along with my Jewish peers has given me a desire for connection and a deep understanding that the tradition I have inherited is full of life.
Wherever my experiences take me and wherever my Jewish observance lands, I am indebted to my Jewish education for giving me chizuk, strength and resolve. I know the joy of community and power of tradition that has brought me to where I am, and this will guide me as I go into the world.
Daniel Schweig is graduating from Jewish Community High School of the Bay. He grew up in Berkeley attending Congregation Beth Israel, Gan Shalom and Oakland Hebrew Day School. He will spend a gap year in Israel at Mechinat Beit Yisrael and then attend UCLA.