We reached out to two Bay Area Jewish high schools — the 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 present a range of perspectives. Mazel tov to the Class of 2026!
Moving from Israel, I rediscovered Judaism at JCHS
Assaf Brajtman, JCHS
Throughout my experience at Jewish Community High School of the Bay, I learned to appreciate my Judaism as a deeply personal aspect of myself that separates me from the rest of society, while allowing me to make connections and enrich my understanding of the world. I’ve learned that my Judaism is different from that of my peers or anybody else — yet it’s the thing that connects us all.
Like many others, I came into JCHS questioning the values of Judaism; I thought that it was a linear path to a lifestyle that I wasn’t interested in. I grew up in Tel Aviv and moved to San Francisco with the belief that I would drift away from my Jewish identity. To be totally honest, it wasn’t something that really enticed me. I didn’t see it as who I was. After attending The Brandeis School of San Francisco for middle school and then moving on to JCHS, I found myself continuing on that path, thinking of Judaism as something I didn’t desire.
However, at JCHS, as I continued to take Jewish studies courses, participate in religious events and holidays and recite prayers that I had never heard before, I found myself exploring a very different sort of Judaism than what I had been used to. In Israel, being Jewish was a fact. Since everyone was Jewish, it didn’t feel unique to who I was. But here, in a cultural melting pot like San Francisco, I felt like I needed to hold on to that identity. I became interested in what Judaism meant to me specifically and the broad range of identity that it has to offer.
Over my years at JCHS, I chose to take courses including Mishnah and Gemara, advanced Bible and commentaries, and an honors class in Jewish thought. This helped me realize the importance of preserving and showing off my Judaism. More importantly, however, it helped me figure out what kind of Jew I want to be.
JCHS taught me that being a Jew is deeper than wearing a kippah, lighting candles on Shabbat, or even living in Israel. It taught me that every single person has their own unique experience with Judaism, and that there isn’t a single Jewish person who is “more Jewish” than another. We are all unique in the way we practice, yet we are all united by the fact that we are Jewish. I’m looking forward to seeing where my Judaism will take me in the years to come.
An alumnus of the Brandeis School of San Francisco, Assaf Brajtman is graduating from the Jewish Community High School of the Bay. He plans to attend Northeastern University and major in philosophy, politics and economics as well as business administration.
My Jewish education helped broaden my perspective
Adam Gelfand, JCHS
I have always taken pride in my Jewish identity. However, prior to high school, I was mostly Jewish in name. I went to Sunday school and prepared for my bar mitzvah. Those close to me knew I was Jewish, but that was the extent of the expression of my identity. I never put much thought into what it meant to be Jewish, instead just accepting the fact that I was. That all changed when I decided to attend Jewish Community High School after leaving my public middle school.
Suddenly, I was in an environment where being Jewish was not something that made me different from everyone else. This was freeing. On the surface level, it was nice not having to miss class for the High Holidays or choose between sports competitions and family time on Shabbat. However, the positive impacts of JCHS have proven to be a lot deeper than escaping calculus on Rosh Hashanah.
Over the course of my four years at JCHS, I have engaged with Jewish history, texts, values and experiences that are intrinsic to shaping the person I am today, and the person I want to continue becoming.
Celebrating Shabbat as a school on a retreat to Camp Newman really showed me the joy and strength that comes from being together with a close-knit Jewish community, and I plan on continuing to seek that community in college and beyond.
“L’Chaim,” an elective class on Jewish holidays and practices, broadened my perspective on how diverse we are as a people, and why inclusivity is so essential to our religion, because there truly is not a “right way” to be Jewish. My senior Jewish thought class has probably been the most impactful as it has taught me that Jewish debate encourages all voices to be heard, regardless of their stance. This has given me a lot more confidence in expressing myself, even if it means being part of the minority.
I am certain that the solid grounding of moral values that JCHS has taught has helped prepare me for college and the evolving and uncertain world that I will soon be contributing to — and I am grateful.
A native of Mill Valley, Adam Gelfand attended Mill Valley Middle School before attending Jewish Community High School of the Bay. He will attend Princeton University, where he plans to major in ecology and evolutionary biology.
At JCHS, I earned my Jewish identity through hard conversations
Allegra Isaac, JCHS
Growing up, my Jewish identity felt like a given — something steady and sure inside me, held in place by Jewish preschool, Jewish community and years of being surrounded by people who largely believed what I believed. What I didn’t expect was that a Jewish high school would be the place that finally tested it.
At JCHS of the Bay, I was surrounded by peers with vastly different views on Israel, on Zionism, on what it even means to be Jewish in 2026. Some of those conversations were challenging. Some of those views I disagreed with deeply. But rather than shaking what I believed, hearing those perspectives pushed me to understand why I believed it — to find the words, the history, the conviction behind something I had always felt connected to.
That’s the gift of a Bay Area Jewish education that no regular high school could have given me: a place where wrestling with hard questions — even among Jews — is considered part of the education.
I’m graduating from JCHS this spring and heading to Israel to do national service at a school for the year. That decision didn’t come despite the hard conversations I had in those hallways. It came because of them. My love for Israel, Zionism, and my sense of responsibility to the Jewish people — all of it is sharper and more mine than it’s ever been.
JCHS didn’t hand me my Jewish identity. It made me earn it. And I’m grateful every day that it did.
Allegra Isaac attended Oakland Hebrew Day School prior to the Jewish Community High School of the Bay. She will join a national service program through Bat Ami in Jerusalem. Following that she will enroll at Stern College for Women at Yeshiva University.
My Jewish education became a bridge not a bubble
Charlotte Kofman, Kehillah
I still remember sitting on the rug of my first-grade classroom at Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School anxiously awaiting my third-grade prayer buddy. Over the next year, my buddy (who also happened to be my brother) guided me in services and encouraged me to build my own understanding of our sacred prayers. Two years later, I became the older buddy. I never expected that mentoring my buddy would be as meaningful as being mentored myself, but watching my first-grader gain confidence in the traditions that once intimidated me made tangible the value of l’dor v’dor: passing traditions, knowledge and values from generation to generation.
As I grew older, my Jewish education focused more on our history. Through social studies and Jewish studies classes at both Hausner and, later, the Kehillah School, I dove into the Holocaust. During these units, I investigated every detail of my own family’s story. Sitting in my eighth-grade classroom, I thought: If my great-grandparents had possessed even one less ounce of strength, I would not be Jewish. I would not be alive. Learning about Jewish history transformed my Jewish identity from something inherited into something I feel responsible for preserving.
This conviction drove me to join Kehillah’s Moot Beit Din team. (A beit din is a court of Jewish law.) Over the next four years, we competed at the highest level, adjudicating contemporary ethical dilemmas — from AI taxis to organ donation — using halachic texts. Moot Beit Din taught me that our ancient texts possess real meaning even in the present day. As long as we continue to enter conversations across time, Rashi, Rambam and the Rema will forever guide us through the modern world.
Looking back, I realize every school I’ve ever attended exists within a one-mile radius. I’m often asked whether I’m excited to escape this so-called bubble of Jewish schools. However, the Jewish education I’ve been fortunate enough to receive never created a bubble. It created a bridge, one which connects me to past and future generations of the Jewish people. Now, as I prepare to go to school over 3,000 miles away, I’m not leaving that bridge behind; I’m building the next section of it.
Charlotte Kofman is graduating from the Kehillah School. She will attend Brown University, where she plans to study political science.
I’ll always carry with me the values I learned at Kehillah
Tal Lerner, Kehillah
From kindergarten at Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School to senior year at the Kehillah School, I’ve attended Jewish schools my entire life. Looking back, the most important part of my Jewish education has not just been what I learned in class, but the values I have been taught and will continue to carry with me.
When I was in seventh grade at Hausner, my classmates and I took a class called “Avodah L’Olam” (Work for the World). In the class, each student chose an issue related to tikkun olam (healing the world), researched nonprofit organizations and decided how our class budget would be donated. The class taught me the importance of philanthropy and the value of thoughtfully supporting those around us.
After Oct. 7, there was a stark increase in antisemitism around me. When I saw a swastika drawn in chalk on the wall of a local Safeway, I was shocked. I immediately wiped it off with my hand, but I also realized that the mark was symptomatic of a deeper problem, one that could not be solved through simple erasure.
I became more involved in our local B’nai Brith Youth Organization chapter and helped program events to discuss antisemitism, prevent it and support those affected by it. In BBYO, I found a warm Jewish community that has made me feel more secure and confident to be Jewish.
Moreover, Jewish education has given me a community that I really value. More recently, our rivalry basketball game with the Jewish Community High School of the Bay fell on Hanukkah. Before the game, both teams came together to light the candles. Although Kehillah lost, coming together with the broader Jewish community was a powerful moment I won’t forget.
My Jewish education has given me so many memories that I will always cherish, like the annual Purim carnival at Hausner, my mouth turning blue from cookies on Yom Ha’Atzmaut and Kabbalat Shabbat with my classmates every Friday. Judaism has shaped me into who I am by shaping my core values. But most importantly, it has given me a warm, vibrant community filled with love and life.
Tal Lerner will attend Stanford University. He plans to pursue data science, computer science or a related field.