Six schools, representing nearly half of all Jewish schools in the Bay Area and Sacramento, are preparing for a period of significant transition with leadership changes set to unfold over the next year.
Brandeis Marin in San Rafael, Jewish Community High School of the Bay in San Francisco, the Kehillah School in Palo Alto, Oakland Hebrew Day School, Shalom School in Sacramento and Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City have all announced that they either have hired or are searching for new heads of school.
Brandeis Marin, San Rafael
Aviva Walls will begin her tenure as Brandeis Marin’s head of school on July 1, following a national search that began after Peg Sandel announced her retirement after 12 years leading the K-8 school.
Walls, who has been head of school at Gesher Jewish Day School in Virginia since 2020, was chosen based on her experience running a preK-8 school and her “ability to make Jewish learning come alive,” according to the school’s board of trustees.
“She is a strong, approachable and collaborative leader whose ability to make Jewish learning come alive is exceptionally well matched for our community,” board president Martin Lowenstein wrote in an announcement to the Brandeis Marin community.
Walls earned her bachelor’s degree from Barnard College and Columbia University and an MBA from New York University, and is on track to receive her doctorate in educational leadership and administration from George Washington University next year.
In a statement, Walls praised Brandeis Marin’s “commitment to building a community shaped by collaboration, hands-on learning and creativity,” adding that she looks forward to leading the school through its next phase of growth and building “on its exceptionally strong foundation.”
Jewish Community High School of the Bay, San Francisco
Jewish Community High School of the Bay announced April 4 that head of school Rabbi Howard Jacoby Ruben will conclude his nearly two-decade tenure at the end of the 2026-27 academic year.
In a message to the community, Ruben reflected on his time at the San Francisco high school through the lens of a teaching from Pirkei Avot: “Who is truly wise? One who learns from every person.”
He described JCHS as an expression of that ideal, noting that the school was founded in 2001 as an “audacious idea” that has since matured into a thriving institution. Since he began his post in 2008, Ruben has seen more than 800 students graduate.
Ruben emphasized that as he steps down, the school remains strong. He pointed to the personal nature of the transition, as he approaches his 70th birthday and looks to spend more time with family.
“I am not stepping away from Jewish life or Jewish education,” he wrote. “I am stepping toward more of it, on different terms.”
Board members shared appreciation for Ruben’s long tenure, crediting him with shaping the school’s culture of pluralism, intellectual rigor and community engagement.
“After nearly 20 years, you can really think of Rabbi Ruben as ‘the dean’ of heads of Jewish schools,” said board president Raphael Edelman, who believes Ruben’s tenure may be one of the longest among Bay Area Jewish schools. “He’s done a phenomenal job in taking JCHS to great heights, and we’re looking forward to someone building on that.”
Edelman said the board of directors has launched a search for a successor and will work with outside consultants and Prizmah, a network for Jewish day schools and yeshivas. Ruben intends to remain in his role through the transition period, supporting the search and ensuring continuity.
The Kehillah School, Palo Alto
The Kehillah School has announced that head of school Daisy Pellant is departing at the end of the school year. In an April 15 message to the Kehillah community, board of trustees chair Jonathan Manson said Pellant had accepted an offer to lead International School Bangkok, a private American preK-12 school in Thailand, beginning in fall 2026.
“An opportunity has emerged that will take me back to my roots in international PK-12 education, work that is both professionally and personally meaningful to me,” Pellant wrote in a statement to Kehillah community members. “While this means my time at Kehillah will conclude sooner than I had originally envisioned, I move forward with deep gratitude and care for this community.”
Kehillah has appointed its director of philanthropy, Rabbi Dennis Eisner, as interim head of the high school for the 2026-27 academic year. Eisner will assume the role on July 1.
Pellant, who began at Kehillah in 2020, has overseen the high school through major changes, including instituting remote learning during the Covid pandemic, dropping “Jewish” from the school’s name and adopting a new logo and mission statement. According to the message sent by Manson, Pellant helped strengthen the school’s academic vision, reinforced its place within the independent school landscape and advanced a “values-driven” educational model rooted in Jewish principles.
“From the moment I arrived, it has been a deep honor to serve this community, and Kehillah will always hold a special place in my heart,” Pellant wrote. “I am incredibly proud of what we have built together.”
Eisner brings extensive experience in Jewish education and nonprofit leadership. When he takes over as interim head of school in the fall, he will be entering his sixth year at Kehillah. School leaders emphasized his collaborative approach and commitment to fostering belonging, dialogue and student growth.
The board of trustees plans to launch a search process for a permanent head of school who would start during the 2027-28 school year.
Oakland Hebrew Day School
Oakland Hebrew Day School announced it will begin the search for a new head of school in the coming months. Tania Schweig, who has served in that role since 2017, will remain on staff for one more year during the leadership transition. She will become the longest-serving head of school in the school’s 34-year history.
“She led the school through a really intense period of history with grace and a lot of assurance, and the school is in a much stronger position in terms of community and enrollment and education than it was was when she took over,” said parent and board member Jo-Ellen Pozner Zeitlin, who is leading the search committee. “She’s had a huge imprint on the organization.”
Schweig previously served the K-8 Modern Orthodox school for 17 years as a teacher and administrator.
“That kind of stability is huge, especially for a relatively small school, so it’s been a wonderful ride with her and we’re looking forward to seeing what she does next and seeing what the future has for OHDS,” said Pozner Zeitlin.
Pozner Zeitlin, a management professor at Santa Clara University with one son attending OHDS and another at JCHS, noted that Jewish schools are varied in their “size, history and the community that backs them up,” making the hiring process unique to each institution.
“One could imagine a scenario where [these transitions] look like turmoil, but in fact, I think this scenario looks like opportunity,” said Pozner Zeitlin. “All of these institutions, the ones that I’m familiar with, are in strong positions and we’re just looking for our next chapter.”
She said OHDS will be working with a consultant from Prizmah and that the search process will begin with parent and stakeholder listening sessions.
Shalom School, Sacramento
Shalom School has hired Omri Shick as its next head of school. Shick will succeed Jilian Bar-or, who has led the school for 12 years. She will remain involved during a transition period beginning in May, when Shick will start working with the school remotely from New York. His official start date is in July.
The six-month search, conducted in partnership with the firm DRG Talent, drew nearly 600 candidates from across the country, according to the school. Its leaders cited Shick’s commitment to academic excellence, organizational leadership and Jewish values as key factors in his selection to guide the school, which runs from preschool through 6th grade.
“His warm presence, passion for Jewish education and compelling vision for Shalom School stood out at every stage,” the school administration wrote in a statement.
Shick currently serves as managing director of Hebrew and Israel studies at Hebrew Public, a network of public charter schools that teach modern Hebrew language and culture, and has more than a decade of experience in educational leadership, curriculum development and special-education coaching. He is pursuing a doctorate in leadership and innovation at New York University, and he earned a master’s degree in biology teacher education and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry teacher education from the College of Staten Island (CUNY).
Shick and his husband plan to relocate from Staten Island to the Sacramento area in June and enroll their three children at Shalom School in the fall.
Wornick Jewish Day School, Foster City
Wornick Jewish Day School head of school Adam Eilath announced he will step down at the end of the school year. After seven years leading the school and 16 years living in the Bay Area, Eilath is relocating his family to South Florida to be closer to his parents and sister.
In a message to the Wornick school community, he described the move as both difficult and necessary.
“Over the past several years, both events in the world and experiences within my own family have sharpened my awareness of how precious time is,” he wrote. “What may once have felt like a meaningful desire to be closer to family has, in this moment, taken on a greater sense of urgency.”
Eilath’s tenure at the TK-8 school began in 2019, just months before the Covid pandemic upended schools nationwide, marking what he described as a “tumultuous” introduction to leadership. Despite those early challenges, Wornick said there was steady growth under his leadership, with enrollment increasing by nearly 30 percent. The school also recently completed a major campus expansion, adding 11,000 square feet of new space including classrooms, a large multipurpose hall and enhanced areas for faculty.
“I feel that the school is in really good shape,” Eilath told J. “It’s not a transition where the school is in crisis or anything. On the contrary, the school is thriving in a way it’s never thrived before, and I think that it’s poised to attract a wonderful leader in the future.”
The school’s board is expected to appoint an interim head in the coming weeks, followed by a national search for a permanent successor to begin in time for the 2027-28 school year.
Eilath pointed to growing collaboration across schools as a stabilizing force amid the many leadership transitions. In recent years, twelve Bay Area and Northern California day schools have formed a consortium, known as NorCal Jewish Day Schools. The group is lay-led and has secured grant funding and supported joint programming, he said.
“Even though there are a lot of transitions, there’s a network now looking out for all the schools in a way that didn’t really exist before,” Eilath said.