Ramaz School

THE RAMAZ SCHOOL Honoring Tradition, Empowering the Future

The Ramaz School offers a superior

classes meeting in the KJ social hall.

coed Modern Orthodox education

Seventy-five years later, with Judith Fagin

to students from preschool through

as Head of School, Ramaz has over a

twelfth grade. Integrating secular

thousand students and three hundred

studies within a yeshiva day school

faculty and staff in three buildings. It is

curriculum, Ramaz embraces Torah

known as one of the pre-eminent and

and Israel together with the finest

most influential Modern Orthodox day

values and traditions of American and

schools in the country.

Western civilization. Students meet the challenges of rigorous scholarship,

Today’s students learn Judaic and

but they also learn lessons that

General Studies subjects that previous

cannot be taught on a blackboard

generations mastered, but through

or Smartboard: the importance

twenty-first century lenses and

of menschlichkeit (treating others

with contemporary pedagogical

with respect and dignity), chesed

approaches. Ramaz embodies all

(performing acts of kindness toward

that is great about Modern Orthodoxy:

others), and social activism.

honoring tradition while simultaneously empowering the future.

This book, issued to commemorate the school’s seventy-fifth anniversary, tells the story of Ramaz from its very beginning. In 1937, Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein founded the “Ramaz Academy” in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, naming it for Rabbi Moses Zevulun Margolies (the “RaMaZ”), spiritual leader of Congregation Kehillath Jeshurun. In its first year the school had six students—

114 East 85th Street New York City, New York 10028 212.774.8055 www.ramaz.org

including its future principal, Haskel Lookstein—and two teachers, with

Printed in the United States of America

THE RAMAZ SCHOOL Honoring Tradition, Empowering the Future

114 East 85th Street New York City, New York 10028 212.774.8055 www.ramaz.org

D E D I C A T I O N

To Rabbi Haskel Lookstein “The goal of a Ramaz education is to fuse two traditions within one wholesome, integrated, respectful, and dignified student at whom the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds look

with pride and admiration and say: ‘Here is the product of a yeshiva education.’”

— Haskel Lookstein, 1971

Under his wise leadership, and with Audrey always by his side, this vision is as true today as ever before. With the Almighty’s help, may it continue to be realized for many years to come.

The Ramaz School wishes to express its deepest appreciation to friends of the school who made this dedication and book possible.

Kindergarten students in 1973 race down the steps of the Ramaz school, then located at 22 East Eighty-Second Street.

T A B L E

O F

C O N T E N T S

Foreword by Elie Wiesel..............................................................Page 9 The Ramaz Mission............................................................... Page 13 Introduction by Haskel Lookstein ........................................ Page 14 History: 1937–2012......................................................... Page 16 Education—Philosophy and Practice................................ Page 46 Hebrew is Our Language............................................... Page 80 Developing Jewish Responsibility...................................... Page 98 Epilogue............................................................................... Page 116

Rabbi Joseph Lookstein and Rabbi Haskel Lookstein share the “contents” of a book.

In 2010, Early Childhood Center students learn and play completely in Hebrew.

F O R E W O R D

In Praise of Ramaz

by Elie Wiesel

We all remember this exciting tale in the Talmud. A sage stops a child in the street with these words: P’sok li p’sukecha, tell me what you have learned today.

The source continues that from the youngster’s answer, the sage would learn the future.

My interpretation is somewhat different.

Those were horror-filled times during the Hadrianic persecutions. To teach or study Torah was meant to expose

oneself to torture and death. Melancholy masters turned to children to find consolation in their words. They brought

living proof that, despite the official Roman threats and practices, the Torah and the love for Torah were not forgotten.

Two thousand years later, can today’s children offer an unknown learned passerby an erudite and appropriate quote from sacred texts?

If the boy or girl is endowed with a Ramaz background, the outcome is gratifying.

I think I may speak from personal experience: Ramaz’s history is one that brings pride to our community and

people. Hundreds and thousands of pupils have taken from their teachers their faith in Jewish education. Perhaps some have not admitted it in their youth—but they did acknowledge it when they themselves became parents.

The goal of Ramaz is to see in Jewish education a lofty ideal that transcends frontiers and origins. It creates an

aristocracy different from others for it is anchored in learning. Talmid chacham is a unique title; it is not given to someone for what he has but for what he is: a messenger from generations to other generations going back from Moses to Rabbi Akiba to Maimonides to the Gaon of Vilna.

Do I like Ramaz because year after year it produces talmidei chachamim? No. I like it because it inspires them with a passion for learning.

It is a passion that remains in me when I teach my classes and write my books.

Elie Wiesel, the parent of a Ramaz graduate, is respected worldwide for his literary and human rights activities. The author of more than fifty books, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.

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“No one person is alone when he can cling to a chain of tradition in which he is the latest link.”

“Whenever I get despondent, I go to the preschool and I say to myself: There is the future. Don’t worry.”

“We are blessed with a fine administration and faculty. We must do everything possible to care for their well-being and prestige.”

“It is time to recognize that knowledge is more than information; it is inspiration.”

“We have reason to take pride in the devotion, understanding and cooperation readily provided by the parents of Ramaz for the school and its well-being and growth.”

“I see a great Ramaz—well housed, well staffed, well supported. I see proud parents deriving joy from the spiritual and educational investment that they made.”

“Knowledge deserving of its name must be endowed with religious content and moral meaning.”

“The founding of Ramaz was a daring action.

The faint-hearted never would have undertaken it.”

“The two most precious gifts we can give our children are roots and wings—to be firmly rooted in our rich Judaic heritage and to be inspired to reach one’s fullest potential.”

“Fortunate is the enterprise that ages without getting old and that retains vigor, vitality, and pioneering spirit.”

Words from Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein, Ramaz Founder and Principal

T H E

R A M A Z

M I S S I O N

As a coeducational,

Modern Orthodox day school,

Ramaz strives to educate students toward the following goals:

A commitment to menschlichkeit, reflecting fineness of character, respect for others, integrity, and the centrality of chesed in all its manifestations.

A commitment to Torah, mitzvot, ahavat Yisrael, and love and support for the State of Israel.

A commitment to the pursuit of knowledge, to intellectual rigor, to scholarship, and a lifelong love of learning.

Loyalty and gratitude to the United States of America, and the democratic traditions and values of our country.

A sense of responsibility for the Jewish people and all humankind.

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

Plus ça change …

By Haskel Lookstein

I was sitting in the Yeshiva University apartment of my revered

teacher, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, of blessed memory, March 24, 1982, posing to him questions that had been bothering me for some time. The Rav was very gracious and he responded to all of them.

When I finished he suddenly asked me, “So, Chatzkel, how is Ramaz?”

I answered: “Thank God, Rebbe, Ramaz is doing very well.”

“How is your enrollment?” he asked.

“Thank God, very strong.”

“Do you have more applicants than you have spaces?”

“Yes,” I replied, “Thank God, we do.”

“That’s because you haven’t changed,” he said.

“What do you mean we haven’t changed?”

“You haven’t pulled to the right; don’t let them pull you to the

right!”

I have shared this story with Ramaz audiences on a number of occasions. It has special meaning, however,

in an introduction to a seventy-fifth anniversary book. The Rav was absolutely correct; we haven’t pulled to the

right, nor have we pulled to the left. We are still the centrist, Modern Orthodox Ramaz that my father, of blessed memory, founded in 1937.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose—the more things change, the more they remain the same. Yes, we have

changed. We are no longer the Ramaz Academy we named ourselves at our founding, nor even the Ramaz School, which we became along the way. We call ourselves today Yeshivat Ramaz. We are more self-conscious and focused

about our role as a yeshiva—for boys and girls—a yeshiva that strives to offer the best Jewish education along with the best general education. But we haven’t changed.

There was a time when we didn’t emphasize Ramaz as a yeshiva. On the contrary, in the first Mission

Statement that Ramaz presented to the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools in the late

1950s, when we applied for accreditation, we stated that we teach the best values and ideas of Western civilization

along with the best values and ideas of Jewish heritage—both with equal emphasis. By the late 1960s, we began to put it the other way around. We teach the values of Torah, mitzvot and all Judaic heritage together, and with equal emphasis, with the best values and ideas of Western civilization. That’s a change but, since we retain our careful balance, it is la même chose—essentially the same.

As you read through this book and look at its contributors, text, and pictures, you will see that we are a

school that still retains at its core a commitment to menschlichkeit. The founding aphorism of Ramaz, taken from the Talmud, is “Talmud Torah is beautiful with derech eretz.” At a time when many Modern Orthodox yeshivot

separate the boys from the girls (some even at grades four or five), Ramaz remains fervently coeducational from

pre-school through grade twelve, offering the same Judaic and general education to young men and women. Both sexes have access to the same knowledge and the same excellent teachers—an increasingly rare phenomenon 16

even in the Modern Orthodox educational community today. Moreover, we encourage girls to sing in our co-

educational choruses and in school performances just as they did seventy-five years ago, this at a time when so

many Modern Orthodox yeshivot effectively silence the voices of girls once they reach puberty. We believe that

song is part and parcel of the fabric of a religious education and that it inspires children to be committed Jews.

We remain fervently Zionist as part of our religious heritage; we see the modern State of Israel as the

beginning of the flowering of the redemption of our people. We love Israel and we are loyal to Israel, even as we

are loyal to America, without reference to which government is leading the Jewish State or, for that matter, which political party occupies the White House.

However, there is one way in which we have changed. Ramaz was born at a time when American Jewry was silent

and quiescent in the face of the Holocaust, the greatest tragedy to befall our people in modern times. Ramaz was not

activist then, nor were students encouraged to display their Judaism in public. In keeping with the temper of the times, the boys were told that “a yarmulke is an indoor garment.” At the time, American Jews, confronting the horrors of the mass murder of European Jewry and the reality of very significant antisemitism in America, were despondent and insecure. Their posture was that of a question mark.

That all changed in the late 1960s. Due to a number of factors, among the most important of which were the

successful defense of the Jewish State in the Six Day War and the heroic renaissance of Soviet Jews, we encouraged Ramaz students to rise from their posture of question marks and stand up like exclamation points. They

marched in great numbers on Solidarity Sundays; they attended rallies for Israel held here in New York and in

Washington DC; they became involved to try to alleviate the plight of Darfur and the poverty of Hope, Pennsyl-

vania. Today, we find for our students every opportunity to stand up to injustice and discrimination—against Jews

or anyone else. As a result, Ramaz students overwhelmingly feel responsibility to their communities, to the Jewish world, and to all of humankind.

But, essentially, on reste le même—we remain the same. We follow a centrist course, refusing to be pulled to

the right or to the left. Many of our most distinguished graduates display this passion for centrism, even as they demonstrate their concern for the society around them. The Larry Kobrins of the earliest years, who not only

excel professionally but who also are Jewish communal leaders; the Jonathan Sarnas, Jeffrey Gurocks, and Beverly Gribetzes, who are outstanding scholars and doers in the Jewish community here and in Israel; the younger

generation of Adam Ferzigers and Joshua Bermans, who are academicians in Israel and serve the American olim and

the indigenous Israelis; and, yes, in more recent years, the younger generation, the Kenny Rochlins, Alan Berkowitzes, Pamela Rohrs, and the Jacob Dofts “hear the voice of God asking: ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?’” and answer as Isaiah did: “Here I am; send me” (Isaiah 6:8).

These are our leaders today: Ramaz alumni who are passionately devoted to the well-being and thriving of our

school and the health and vibrancy of Modern Orthodox Judaism here and in Israel.

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History 1937-2012

How Ramaz—named for Rabbi Moses Z. Margolies—grew in seventy-five years from six students and two teachers in the KJ social hall to over a thousand students and three hundred faculty across three buildings.

The board of trustees at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun (KJ) remained unconvinced.

The trustees agreed with Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein that there was a need for a Jewish day school integrating religious and secular studies. And yes, they recognized that such a school would be consistent with the vision of Rabbi Joseph’s late grandfather-in-law, the RaMaZ—Rabbi Moses Z. Margolies—the congregation’s guiding light for the previous three decades. They also knew Rabbi Lookstein’s son, Haskel, was five years old and ready to start school in a few months, in September 1937. The rabbi wanted his son close to the synagogue’s East 85th Street address.

But his vision went far beyond his own family. Rabbi Joseph Lookstein told the board that he wanted to create a progressive coeducational school, one that would attract children of both observant and nonobservant families.

It would meld Jewish and American ideals and culture with Torah study. It would represent an Americanized Orthodoxy. The school, the rabbi said, was “an imperative necessity for an entire generation of growing young people.”

Rabbi Joseph Lookstein’s dream could not be put into practice without the financial support of KJ. After all, the first-year deficit alone would be five thousand dollars. The synagogue’s officers told him what he already knew: The congregation couldn’t meet its own bills, much less take on more. Why, the rabbi himself had gone without his salary several times. We cannot, KJ president Fred Margareten said, put a healthy head onto a sick body.

Besides, 1937 wasn’t an auspicious time to publicly announce one’s Jewish identity in New York: Every week, the virulent antisemitic commentaries of Catholic priest Father Charles Coughlin were broadcast to millions of radio listeners. The KJ neighborhood on the Upper East Side—known as Yorkville—was home to the proNazi German-American Bund, which held regular street rallies and had organized a boycott of Jewish businesses.

Yet Rabbi Joseph knew he was right. There was a significant void in Jewish education. There were yeshivot in Manhattan and Brooklyn that, in Rabbi Joseph’s

‫ ַהחֲזֹון וְ ַה ַמעַׂש‬:‫ז ֶה סֵפֶר ּתֹול ְדֹות ַרמַז‬ The History of Ramaz: The Vision and the Reality

In 1939, students learn poise by standing in front of the classroom and reading aloud to their peers.

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view, were “ghetto schools” whose mission was to keep students largely away from mainstream American culture.

He had attended one of them, the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School on Henry Street on the Lower East Side, and remained dissatisfied with the education he had received there. These schools, for boys only, were strung together on shoestring budgets, often staffed with underqualified or over-worked employees in settings not conducive to a superior education, and attracted struggling immigrant families. Jewish studies were taught in the mornings and secular studies in the afternoon, a method, the rabbi said, by which “tired teachers were

From the earliest years, some students traveled far to attend the Ramaz Academy.

expected to teach tired students.”

Some progress had been made in the 1920s in Brooklyn with the establishment of a string of more modern day schools. Borough Park’s Etz Chaim Yeshiva for boys and Shulamith School for girls, the coeducational Yeshivah of Flatbush, and the Crown Heights Yeshiva (initially boys-only and later coed) followed the lead of public schools for their secular studies curricula. Parents who chose these schools wanted their children to be well-adjusted Americans as well as Zionists. However, few Jews in America were then deeply religiously observant or devoted to the Jewish national cause, and most of the city’s Jews preferred to send their children to public or secular private schools, settling for a modicum of Judaic learning during weekday afternoons after school, and Sunday mornings, if at all.

Ramaz would be different because Rabbi Joseph planned to reach out to girls and boys from families with limited commitment to halachic observance. (Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik also reached out to this population at the same time in Brookline, Massachusetts, when he established his own Maimonides School.) The rabbi’s plan was designed to bring Judaic rigor and strong Zionist sentiment to students, which would influence their parents’

RAMAZ IS BORN, 1937 It was then that my thoughts regarding a modern progressive and private Day School began to crystallize.

For years the subject never left my thoughts; before long, it became an obsession. I began to feel that the so called traditional Yeshiva was inadequate as an educational medium for a modern American Jewish child. A new type of school with a new orientation was an imperative necessity for the survival of Judaism in America. Such a school should not reject the “old” merely because it was old, nor should it adopt-the “new” merely because it was new. I was seeking a synthesis of the old and the new, a fusion of the traditional and modern.

In my mind, I kept thinking of the old Biblical verse: “And they placed the ark of God upon a new cart.” The old holy ark must be retained; what is needed is a new vehicle. I saw in Ramaz a new vehicle to convey the tradition to succeeding generations of American Jewish Youth.

—Excerpt from an autobiographical essay by Rabbi Joseph Lookstein, 1974

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level of observance and commitment. “They are not observant yet,” he would say.

It was crucial to offer a school that would compare favorably with the best secular day schools of the time while also offering a yeshiva education that would far surpass what was available in afternoon religious classes or Sunday schools. He wanted to achieve an “integrated child…who will experience no clash in being a Jew and an American at the same time.” His competition was not the Jewish schools; it was the elite secular day schools in Manhattan. The school also would differ from other Jewish day schools because it would educate children of all socioeconomic levels.

Rabbi Joseph understood the stakes. He’d served as assistant rabbi to the RaMaZ for thirteen years. He knew how to run a synagogue and how to lead a community. When the synagogue’s membership declined in the 1920s as people moved to the Upper West Side, his suggestions for modernization—announcing page numbers during

The RaMaZ Before there was a Ramaz, there was the RaMaZ—Rabbi Moses Zevulun Margolies. Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein chose to name his path-breaking school for the senior rabbi whom he followed in the Kehilath Jeshurun pulpit.

Naming the school after the RaMaZ a year after his death was certainly a sincere act of reverence to honor his grandfather by marriage, but it was also recognition of his influence. Many of the values that came to be identified with the Ramaz School stemmed from the teachings and actions of the RaMaZ himself. Rabbi Lookstein imbibed ideas and sensitivities from his mentor, ensuring that they lived on and flourished.

The RaMaZ’s iconic visage—white hair; long, grey beard— conjured an old-school East European rav out of touch with the new world. Born in 1851 in Kraz, Lithuania, the RaMaZ studied at yeshivot in Bialystok and Kovno before serving as a community rabbi in Bialystok for a dozen years prior to his arrival in Boston in 1899. Though he did not receive a secular education, he understood that for Judaism to survive in America and beyond, accommodations had to be made to contemporary realities, albeit with halachah reigning supreme. Moreover, he believed allies could be found within many Jewish sectors, so long as Orthodoxy was not compromised.

The RaMaZ did not write much, but his actions spoke loudly of his progressive and tolerant disposition. In May, 1902, five immigrant rabbis from Eastern Europe met in his home in Boston to address critical issues facing American Jewry. Sabbath observance was lax, the kashrut industry was poorly monitored, and Jewish education was at a

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services, reading responsively, conducting portions in English, and emphasizing decorum—helped stabilize the situation. With his grandfather-in-law’s death in August 1936, Rabbi Joseph assumed leadership of KJ and its aging congregation. To grow, it needed young families, and the way to reach young families was through their children. A connection between KJ and his proposed school could create the symbiosis needed to build two successful organizations, and, in the process, influence future generations. His was a powerful pulpit; all the more reason, in his mind, to push hard for what he believed. He raised his five-foot-one-half-inch frame to its full height and addressed the board. If you will not fund this project, he told the trustees, I’ll resign and create the school with another congregation.

It was Max J. Etra, a lawyer and the board’s treasurer, who spoke. He was a firm believer in Jewish tradition, faith, and education. Later, he would sit on the board of Yeshiva University for more than forty years, serving as

low ebb. A quixotic attempt to remedy these problems had undone Rabbi Jacob Joseph, the Chief Rabbi of New York, proving that no one rabbi could solve all the challenges of American freedom.

Moreover, the Reform Movement, which eschewed halachah, was growing. Out of these deliberations came the Union of Orthodox Rabbis. The RaMaZ would become a long-term member of its executive committee. But remarkably, there was a second dynamic that brought these colleagues together.

They were also delegates to the Federation of American Zionists’ organization convention, a decidedly non-Orthodox group. Under Zionist auspices, these Orthodox leaders sat with Reform rabbis Richard Gottheil and Stephen S. Wise, as well as Conservative leaders Rabbi Marcus Jastrow and Henrietta Szold.

Their willingness to work with those with whom they disagreed theologically rose out of their Mizrachi (religious Zionist) principles. The RaMaZ firmly believed that religious Jews must play a central role in Zionism. Religious Zionism, with its belief that the Torah would guide the path toward Israeli statehood, would become a foundational tenet of the Ramaz School.

Half a decade later, after assuming his position at KJ, the RaMaZ served on the board of directors of the Uptown Talmud Torah in East Harlem, a progressive school dedicated to teaching Orthodox Judaism using modern educational techniques. The RaMaZ not only agreed to these principles, but also joined hands again with non-Orthodox Jews, including the leading Reform communal leaders Jacob Schiff and Louis Marshall. The RaMaZ’s model of embracing innovative ways of teaching Judaism and working closely with all Jews, so long as Orthodoxy would not be compromised, served as the blueprint for his eponymous school.

A year before his death, in 1935, a group of young Orthodox rabbis, men ordained primarily at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, visited the RaMaZ at his summer vacation spot, the Hotel Carlton in Belmar, New Jersey. They were about to form the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) and came for his blessing. These rabbis were dealing with maturing second-generation Jews who were still interested in Orthodox synagogues but were increasingly attracted to the Conservative Movement. Some of these rabbis held fast to strict Orthodox synagogue principles—especially no mixed seating, the calling card of their competitors. But others felt great pressures to deviate from Orthodoxy’s tenets. The old-line Union of Orthodox Rabbis refused to accept these rabbis as colleagues. Despite his long- standing relationship with the Union, the RaMaZ recognized the problems facing young rabbis, and therefore gave the RCA his imprimatur. The RCA went on to accept colleagues with differing theological points of view, but reserved leadership roles for those who did not deviate from halachic standards. It makes sense, then, that the school carrying this great rabbi’s name would adopt a guiding principle of tolerance within Orthodoxy.

— Jeffrey S. Gurock ’67 is the Libby M. Klaperman Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University.

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chairman for nearly twenty-five. He didn’t just work for causes he cherished; he lived them. So it was this night, when he personally pledged to underwrite the school’s first year’s deficit. The rest of the board followed his lead.

Rabbi Lookstein’s school opened in September 1937. He named it “Ramaz Academy”—“Ramaz” after his wife’s grandfather and “Academy” to make it attractive to New York City parents. It opened with six students and two teachers who met in the social hall of the synagogue.

Seventy-five years later, Ramaz has over a thousand students and 300 faculty and staff in three buildings.

Its more than 5,000 alumni include members of government in both the U.S. and Israel, scholars, lawyers, entrepreneurs, financial professionals, doctors, rabbis, teachers, and leaders throughout all disciplines and businesses. Its name has become synonymous with academic excellence, chesed and menschlichkeit, social activism, and participation in the Jewish community and the wider world. As the school has grown, it has remained steadfast to the mission established by the rabbi. In fact, adherence to his principles spurred the school’s remarkable rise from fledgling academy to elite Modern Orthodox day school.

The RaMaZ and Rabbi Joseph Lookstein

Founded in 1872 as Anshe Jeshurun, KJ became ensconced in a multi-story neoclassical-design building constructed in 1902. From the beginning the synagogue was committed to an exciting form of Jewish expression—the dual commitment to modernity and Orthodoxy. Congregants participated in the secular world without compromising the traditions of Shabbat and kashrut and a strong Zionist connection.

That same combination of Jewish and American values has been at the core of Ramaz ever since. Rabbi

Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein— Founder of a School and a Community Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein was blessed with personal charm, outstanding oratorical skills, and an eye for detail; thus equipped, he trained his sights on upwardly mobile American Jews who might have drifted away from observance. The strategy paid off. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, his focus and vision made it possible to attract families from the increasingly Americanized and Westernized Jewish community.

My parents often pleaded with their friends to send their children to Ramaz, but were met with the fears of separateness and “ghettoization” from virtually their entire social circle. It was against that kind of fear and feeling that Rabbi Joseph Lookstein uncovered the key to attract reluctant parents. He insisted on the coordination of vacations with the secular schools to facilitate Ramaz students’ continued friendships with students in other schools. He made the daily schedule an integrated one, mixing secular and religious studies, changing the traditional yeshiva schedule that relegated secular

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Margolies, the RaMaZ, leader of KJ for thirty-one years, was a pioneer of New York Orthodox Jewry. He was a prodigious scholar; he completed the study of the entire Talmud annually on the yahrzeit of his mother. On his father’s side, his lineage could be traced to Rashi, the great eleventh-century Torah and Talmud commentator. On his mother’s side, he was related by marriage to the Gaon of Vilna. His looks were patriarchal—a long white beard set off his ruddy face and a starched white shirt with hard collar lay under his Prince Albert coat. It was said that he “looked like Moses except that he wore gold-rimmed spectacles.” He introduced a system for distribution of kosher meat in New York City, supported the New York Kehillah, and founded the Central Relief Committee, later absorbed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. He was, for many years, a president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis. He was a prominent member of the Mizrachi movement from its inception, and served as the American-based treasurer for numerous European yeshivot. His correspondence included exchanges with Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook of Palestine, Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski of Vilna, and the Chofetz Chaim of Radin.

He spoke Yiddish and wrote in Hebrew, but he was a keen observer of American mores. He successfully straddled the divide between the traditions of Eastern Europe and the realities of twentieth-century America.

He was unique in his interpretations of halachah in the context of American Jewish life, his devotion to religious Zionism, and his connection with all the Jewish denominations. The RaMaZ was simple and unaffected, delivering his opinions and decisions on halachic questions with a decidedly liberal view. It made sense that Rabbi Lookstein would choose to name the school he founded to honor the RaMaZ.

studies to the late afternoon. His pedagogical approach was a continuation of his own life path: He had obtained his smicha at the same time that he pursued secular graduate studies at CCNY and Columbia.

At the same time, he worked tirelessly to raise scholarship funds for children of refugees and survivors and from lower- and middle-class neighborhoods. Equally important to Rabbi Joseph Lookstein was the physical appearance of the school. Nothing was beyond his concern or attention, even down to an errant cigarette butt on the floor. He personally interviewed all applicants, a process that was equal parts school promotion and application interview. Nor was anything beyond his participation where it would demonstrate the involvement of the rabbi in American life and institutions—thus, his stint as the pitcher in the Lag B’Omer baseball game. (Years later, his son, Haskel, would throw the first pitch at a Mets game at Shea Stadium.) It was this relentless outreaching personality that appealed to an Upper East Side and Upper West Side community that, by all sociological logic, should have drifted into Conservative or Reform practice, or made religious identification completely irrelevant to their lives.

He did the same within Kehilath Jeshurun, taking from contemporary social practice and conveying Jewish tradition. One such effort was the annual Thanksgiving Day service that he organized for many years. It confirmed that the Jewish community could embrace American institutions and values.

In later years, I was invited to work as U.S. counsel with Rabbi Joseph Lookstein on the affairs of Bar Ilan University. In his leadership role, Rabbi Lookstein followed the same tactics of using existing and wellknown non-religious formats for the purposes of a religious program (which may have rescued the university after the loss of its founding leaders). He sought to cement the relationship of the Israeli university to the United States by the unique device of obtaining a New York Board of Regents charter for the school, the only Israeli institution to do so. Once again, he melded Jewish and Western thought.

— Lawrence Kobrin ’50 was graduated from Columbia College and Columbia Law School. A real estate attorney living in Manhattan, Kobrin served as chairman of the Ramaz Board of Directors from 1978-83.

Hands-on experimentation remains the best way for students to learn about science.

The RaMaZ addresses a mass protest against Nazi antisemitism at Madison Square Garden in 1933.

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Rabbi Joseph Lookstein and Rabbi Haskel Lookstein visit the Early Childhood Center in the late 1970s.

After seventeen years as the chief rabbi in Boston, Rabbi Margolies had taken the pulpit of KJ in 1906, at the age of fifty-five. His approach greatly influenced Rabbi Joseph Lookstein, who served under him as assistant rabbi at KJ from 1923-1936 before spending forty-three years himself as its senior leader. The young rabbi was one of four of the RaMaZ’s assistants at KJ—others had included rabbis Mordecai Kaplan (later the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism), Herbert Goldstein (who went on to found the influential Institutional Synagogue on West 116th street), and Elias Solomon (who became leader of the Conservative synagogue Shaare Zedek on the Upper West Side).

Rabbi Joseph Lookstein was born in Simyatich in Tzarist Russian Poland in 1902 as Yosef Lochshin. In 1909 he and his family became part of the Eastern European immigration wave settling in New York City. Most of the group acclimated itself to its new homeland by leaving behind tradition and the scrupulous practice of Judaism. His father, Jacob, supported his family by selling dry goods from a pushcart on the Lower East Side, where they lived before moving later to Brownsville. Early on, young Joseph became a serious student of Torah. His father gave him a nickel for each chapter he learned by heart. Joseph had history on his side: His family claimed Chasidic ancestry and twelve generations of rabbis. As a youngster, his verbal and social skills were so pronounced he was known as the “boy orator” of the Lower East Side.

In 1917, Joseph Lookstein entered the Yeshiva Rabbi Isaac Elchanan (later known as RIETS at Yeshiva University).

He simultaneously attended City College of New York and later earned a master’s degree at Columbia University. He earned his smicha in 1926, with the RaMaZ and Dr. Bernard Revel, president of the yeshiva, among those granting his ordination. That same year he married Gertrude Schlang, the RaMaZ’s granddaughter. By that time, the rabbi had already served as an assistant to the RaMaZ for three years.

Rabbi Joseph was popular at KJ from the start, as much for his oratorical gifts as for his communal philosophy. By all accounts he was funny, vivacious, and often mischievous, as likely to ask a provocative question as to share a story.

The RaMaZ taught him the intricacies of synagogue life while supporting the younger man’s ideas to modernize the synagogue. At the same time, the RaMaZ taught him how to influence congregants to become more observant. For example, before he came to KJ, the young Joseph Lookstein had picketed the kosher butcher stores on the Lower East 31

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In the 1970s, second-grade students celebrate as they receive their first very own chumashim.

Side because their kashrut standards were too low. The RaMaZ, however, demonstrated to him it was not difficult to state something was treif. More important as a rabbi was to find opinions that would allow a certification of kashrut.

“The more kosher products that can be provided,” the RaMaZ said, “the more kashrut will be observed.”

The Early Years

The RaMaZ died at age eighty-five in August 1936. The school bearing his name opened a year later. Over the next twelve years, Ramaz experienced modest growth in its enrollment. At first the school rented space in the next door Central Jewish Institute building at 125 East Eighty-Fifth Street; in 1945 it bought the building outright. In 1943, the school celebrated its first elementary school commencement ceremony. One year later, the high school was founded. With the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the children of Israeli diplomats began to enroll.

A “modern” school, Ramaz had no classes on Sundays or the secular holidays. It had athletic teams and cheerleaders, dramatics and choir, art and music. Through the first two decades, because of rampant antisemitism, boys were told a kippah was an “indoor garment” worn only in school, shul, and home. Outside, one wore a hat.

Shacharit was not included in the daily schedule during the school’s early years; students were expected to daven 32

Rabbi Haskel Lookstein Rabbi Haskel Lookstein has shown that the streets of New York can be sanctified. Prayers, marches, and protests on behalf of fellow Jews suffering oppression is a holy act. In the process, the activist becomes a better Jew and a better American.

Activism that cuts across denominational lines is a family trait that began with the RaMaZ, who participated in the New York Kehillah in the early twentieth century.

The German Jewish Reform elite founded the Kehillah in response to the antisemitic allegation by the New York City Police Commissioner that half the city’s criminals were Jews. A forerunner of today’s Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and the Jewish Education Project, the Kehillah brought together all New York Jews. The RaMaZ put aside theological differences to participate in this important organization, which addressed social and communal concerns.

Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, during his mission to the Soviet Union in 1972 to support Soviet Jewish refuseniks, joins in a procession in the Moscow Synagogue on Hoshana Rabba morning.

In 1943 the dimensions of the calamity befalling European Jews became increasingly known. On Washington’s Birthday, Rabbi Joseph Lookstein chaired a “Children’s Solemn Assembly of Sorrow and Protest.” Some thirty-five hundred students and educational and youth group leaders joined at the New York City Center on West Fifty-Fifth Street to pray for Jews suffering under the Nazis’ heels. In the spring, as heroic Jews in Warsaw were rising up, Rabbi Joseph Lookstein welcomed to Kehilath Jeshurun more than five hundred Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform rabbis and over one thousand lay participants for a special meeting of prayer and intercession. Many Modern Orthodox congregations, along with the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, refused to participate because Reform and Conservative rabbis were on the program.

Rabbi Haskel Lookstein has responded similarly to the pressing crisis of oppressed Jewry in his lifetime, the plight of Jews in the Soviet Union. The issue has never been one of denominational boundaries but of fulfilling the holy mission of pidyon sh’vu’im (redemption of captives). Always respectful during his acts of civil disobedience, Rabbi Lookstein, a leader of the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry, was frequently handcuffed along with Conservative and Reform rabbis in front of the Soviet Mission to the United Nations. He stressed the importance of protesting in a strong yet respectful manner. In the 1980s, with their principal leading them, Ramaz students were among the sturdiest foot soldiers for the cause of Soviet Jewry through their regular morning prayer vigils.

The activist tradition continues today. Rabbi Haskel Lookstein mobilizes community-wide protests against Israel’s enemies and marches proudly with his students and all Jews in joyous parades saluting the Jewish State. He raises awareness of the fate of captured Israeli prisoners of war held incommunicado

by Arab terrorists, keeping hopes alive that somehow and someday they will be freed. For five and a half years, from June 2006 through October 2011, KJ worshippers and Ramaz students were reminded weekly—on shul and school bulletin boards and through heartfelt prayers—how long Gilad Shalit had been held by Hamas in Gaza. Once again, Rabbi Lookstein was on the front lines of a critical social issue that demanded social activism and that knew no denominational lines.

— Jeffrey S. Gurock

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at home. The school allowed students to embrace both the “American dream” as well as Jewish heritage, as long as the former was permitted by halachah and the latter conformed to Modern Orthodox philosophy.

Rabbi Lookstein’s cultured manner, appreciation of opera, and articulate language appealed to recent immigrants arriving from the trauma of Europe and seeking, on the Upper East Side, the cosmopolitan milieu of their native Vienna, Prague, or Berlin.

As post-World War II enrollment increased, so did the need for more space, larger staff, and increased At an early science fair, eighth-grade students display their inventions. scholarship money for children who qualified for admission but whose parents could not afford tuition. The space issue was resolved with the purchase of a building at 22 East EightySecond Street, into which the two high school classes moved in September 1946. Other needs were eased by the loyal and dedicated work of Lillian Jacobs, who had a hand in everything from school finances, faculty hiring, and educational discussions to serving as unofficial school nurse and running the annual fund-raising dinner dance, which began in 1951. Money raised at these elegant functions, held at some of the city’s finest hotels, and featuring dinner and dancing for more than a thousand people, was allocated to the Scholarship Fund. The school needed such fundraising; it operated at a deficit through the 1940s, relying on donations from the KJ Sisterhood

Dr. Benjamin Brickman His title was supervision of instruction, but Dr. Benjamin Brickman was much more than that at Ramaz. He came to Ramaz as Mr. Brickman, a young professor of education from Brooklyn College, handpicked by Professor Joseph George Cohen to help Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein organize the school. Thirty years later, he retired from his role in Ramaz as Dr. Benjamin Brickman (his doctorate was in philosophy). During that formative period of our school, he was the principal’s right-hand man in all educational matters.

Dr. Brickman designed the dual curriculum from kindergarten through grade eight,

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and Men’s Club, as well as a yearly gift from KJ itself to meet its obligations.

Demographics changed dramatically during Ramaz’s first forty years. From 1950 to 1960, only 10 percent of the student body came from the Upper East Side, with the rest arriving by bus and subway from the Upper West Side and the Bronx. But by 1965 a quarter of the students called the Upper East Side home, and, by 1976-77, that percentage had jumped to 50 percent and continued to climb. Increasingly, Modern Orthodox Jews chose to live on the Upper East Side because they were drawn to Ramaz, whose reputation flourished in educational and social circles. KJ was also a draw; as its prestige grew, its membership swelled. Beginning in the 1960s, the neighborhood and KJ had become an important center of Modern Orthodoxy.

After being graduated from Ramaz in 1949 as valedictorian of his class and president of the student government, Haskel Lookstein entered Columbia University. At the end of his junior year, he realized his professional passion lay in Jewish education and that he wanted to pursue rabbinic ordination, although his father never pressured him to become a rabbi. To make sure he was making the right choice, he traveled to Crown Heights during the summer before his senior year to study three hours a day with Rabbi Norman Lamm, then the rabbinic assistant at KJ and today the chancellor of Yeshiva University. Rabbi Haskel had such a successful experience he decided to enter the rabbinical program at YU in the spring of 1953, and was graduated in January from Columbia. At YU he studied with the leading Orthodox scholars of the day, including Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the Rav. Rabbi Lookstein chose to prolong his studies at YU in order to participate in the Rav’s class for four years. In the spring of 1958, he received his ordination.

In June 1958, Haskel Lookstein was installed as assistant rabbi at KJ and began teaching at Ramaz. He gradually began implementing changes at KJ, including a Young Marrieds Club and a Junior Congregation (under the guidance of Dr. Noam Shudofsky). At the same time he increased his involvement at the synagogue, he continued his work at Ramaz, teaching Talmud and Tanach to boys and girls, along with various other Judaic subjects. By 1961 he was the coordinator of the school’s Jewish studies program. That same year, girls were given the option to continue studying Talmud during their junior and senior years. In 1965, Rabbi Joseph ceded the position of Ramaz principal to his son because of declining health. With Rabbi Haskel leading the school, Ramaz

and, beginning in 1945, from grades nine through twelve. He trained faculty and followed the educational growth of students, all the while meticulously and expertly managing details of the school’s operation.

Dr. Brickman was an ideal model for the integration of Judaic education with a secular education. He lived comfortably in both worlds as a scholar of Western thought, including philosophy; Latin (which he brought to our high school); and all facets of a general education. At the same time, he was an observant, learned Jew who could sit in on Judaic Studies classes with expertise and insight, not only with regard to methodology but also to content. He was passionate about academic excellence and imbued that passion into the school. While many students were intimidated by his stern exterior, those who knew him well saw a warm, gracious, and loving personality with a great sense of humor and a delightful playfulness. In his more relaxed moments, he would sit with his pipe and listen pensively to a student, a teacher, or a professional colleague, responding with wisdom and thoughtfulness.

Ramaz has a reputation for menschlichkeit, for a commitment to high quality and excellence in academics, for love of knowledge and for open-mindedness. These attributes have been nurtured by many teachers and leaders over the past seventy-five years. They were first implanted in Ramaz and championed through the tireless efforts and gifted mind of Dr. Benjamin Brickman.

— Haskel Lookstein

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was propelled to the forefront of Modern Orthodox education.

The 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s

In 1967, the Six-Day War ushered in the beginning of a new focus to narrow the gap between American Jewry and the Jewish State. Ramaz’s dual curriculum perfectly matched the increased interest of parents seeking to give their children a deeper connection to Israel. Six years later, the Yom Kippur War crystallized the realization that Jews and Israel were judged by standards not applied to others, both in the general media and the world at large.

Government-sanctioned antisemitism in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa engendered a sense of isolation.

During the tumultuous social movements of the late 1960s and ’70s, when many Americans questioned authority, supported civil rights for African Americans and the cause of women’s liberation, protested the Vietnam War, and experimented with drugs and sexual mores, it became more important than ever before for Orthodox institutions to explain the relevance of Judaism in daily life. Rabbi Haskel Lookstein increasingly sharpened a concept he had spoken about for years at KJ and Ramaz—the idea of a true “Man of Torah” combining ethical sensitivity, Jewish activism, and piety, along with Torah learning. He called it menschlichkeit. This profound idea has been a guiding principle for the school and shul ever since.

Thus, in 1967, Ramaz students conducted a twenty-four-hour vigil for Soviet Jewry in front of the UN headquarters. Rabbi Lookstein’s four trips to the former Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s galvanized Ramaz into broader activities such as a student-inspired daily shacharit minyan in front of the Russian Mission. (In 1982, sixty-five students, along with Rabbi Lookstein and Ramaz teacher David Bernstein, were arrested on day twentyfour.) Today, menschlichkeit is expressed through activities such as daily food collections, work in soup kitchens, and activities with developmentally disabled youths, in addition to political activism.

In 1979, with the school’s 817 students all crammed into a single building now used only by the Lower School, the trustees spearheaded the raising of $10.5 million to purchase a site at 60 East Seventy-Eighth Street. The completed Morris and Ida Newman Educational Center was named the Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein Upper School.

Its namesake was present at the ground breaking, less than half a year before he died at age seventy-six. The striking seven-story aluminum-faced building was set among older surrounding structures on the street. It featured windows

Pinchus Churgin and Joseph G. Cohen When Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein set out to build the dual-curriculum Jewish day school of his dreams, there was no question that he would handle the administrative responsibilities.

But the Judaic and secular studies for Ramaz Academy in 1937 required expert guidance. Two of New York City’s finest educators, Drs. Pinchus Churgin and Paul Klapper, were called in.

Dr. Churgin, who had studied at the famed Volozhin yeshiva in Poland (later Lithuania), obtained smicha at age eighteen in 1912 and his Ph.D. at Yale University ten years later. A teacher in the fledgling Beit Midrash LeMorim when it opened in 1920 at the Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Yeshiva on the Lower East Side, he was appointed principal just three years later. In the 1930s, he was named a senior professor of Jewish history and literature at Yeshiva College.

He and Rabbi Joseph shared similar interests: Both were involved in the Mizrachi movement; both sought to re-establish Hebrew as a spoken language; and both dreamed of developing a school in which Jewish learning could be studied along with secular studies. While their collaboration began at Ramaz, it later flourished in the creation of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan.

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Rabbi Haskel Lookstein’s leadership begins as G.O. president in 1948.

Dr. Klapper had been a fixture in the department of education at City College since 1907. He was named dean of the department in 1928. He helped Rabbi Joseph initially with the secular course study for Ramaz, and when he was named the first president of Queens College in 1937, he recommended that Dr. Joseph George Cohen replace him.

Dr. Cohen had earned two master’s degrees and his doctorate at New York University by age twentyfive. His doctoral thesis—“A Critical and Experiential Study of Children’s Art”—likely appealed to Rabbi Joseph’s interest in a well-rounded general studies curriculum, as did his fluency in French and Italian and his extensive travel experiences.

When their paths crossed, Dr. Cohen was an education professor at Brooklyn College. Until Rabbi Joseph’s death in 1979, they remained friends and confidantes about Ramaz, with Dr. Cohen providing guidance on everything from faculty hires to nomenclature. During the early stages of Dr. Cohen’s retirement, Rabbi Joseph arranged for him to deliver a series of lectures at Bar-Ilan University in 1958–59.

A 1970 note from Rabbi Joseph Lookstein to Dr. Cohen encapsulated their relationship: “We invariably turned to you whenever a crisis arose and your experience and sagacity enabled us to master it.”

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resembling the Ten Commandments and an intimate sanctuary that The New York Times described in a 1981 review as having “unusual grace.”

In the early 1980s, parents became more involved than ever before in school decision-making with the creation of the Liaison Committees. In meetings every six weeks at the Lower, Middle, and Upper Schools, representatives of school administration and faculty meet with parents and take the pulse of the parent body.

The notes of each meeting—concerning issues such as school nutrition, Lower School clothing uniforms, and academic trends—are distributed to all parents.

The 1990s and Beyond

Beginning in 1997, with a school population approaching one thousand, the Ramaz community raised $35 million to construct the Ramaz Middle School in the Benjamin and Esther Gottesman Education Center at 114 East Eighty-Fifth Street, directly across the street from KJ. Ramaz was the first Modern Orthodox day school to create a separate Middle School exclusively for grades five through eight. Rabbi Eliezer Rubin worked with an administrative team for a full year of planning prior to the opening of the school. From its advisory program to health education to curricular changes that meet the needs of pre-adolescents and young adolescents, the Middle School offered a unique educational model.

Other changes included the introduction of co-curricular activities in the Upper School. Options multiplied dramatically in the 1980s to include numerous types of music, art, and writing. In 2005, the Ramaz Chamber Chorus performed for President George W. Bush’s Chanukah party at the White House. (“They all deserve A’s,” the President told Rabbi Lookstein.)

Meanwhile, lay leaders such as Arthur Silverman spearheaded an effort to make the school’s financial status more sophisticated. The fiduciary responsibility for Ramaz’s growth was now in the hands of professionals. Ramaz graduates began to return to serve as chairmen of the school’s board of trustees. These included Melvin Newman ’59, Steven Gross ’64, David Kahn ’65, Steven Schacter ’68 (the eldest grandchild of Rabbi Joseph Lookstein), Pamela Rohr ’78, and Jacob Doft ’87.

Beginning in 2000, the school embarked on an effort to bring increased transparency to its finances, improve its development capabilities, and build its endowment. The ramifications of this effort, according to Jacob Doft, are an “improved culture at Ramaz.” Transparency—which helps ensure smarter spending—leads to smooth

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Out of the Ashes: The Fire at KJ At 8:30 PM on Monday evening, July 11, 2011, a four-alarm fire broke out inside Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun. Flames shot up forty feet in the air from the roof of the sanctuary as 170 firefighters battled the blaze. On Facebook and Twitter, members of the Ramaz and KJ community exchanged messages of concern. Emails flew as the news was reported on television and the Internet.

From all over New York City, supporters rushed to the scene so as not to feel alone. Hundreds stood on East Eighty-fth Street and watched with shock and sadness as the fire destroyed the roof, damaged the upper floors, shattered the stained-glass windows, and created thick black clouds of smoke.

By Tuesday morning, the New York Fire Department and KJ assessed the damage to the 110-year-old building. While considerable, it could have been far worse. Although only a few of the roof beams remained, the building itself was intact. Most important, of course, was that there was no loss of life. And, because the synagogue had been undergoing renovation, the Torah scrolls had previously been relocated.

Rabbi Haskel Lookstein estimated it would take at least a year to eighteen months before services could resume in the KJ building. Moreover, the Lower School building was beset by water damage caused in the aftermath of the fire, making it impossible to repair the damage by early September for the start of the new school year. Immediately, neighboring Reform and Conservative synagogues—Temple EmanuEl and Park Avenue Synagogue, among others—offered to host Early Childhood Center and Lower School students in a beautiful expression of achdut (unity) within the Jewish community.

Ramaz faculty and staff reacted with outstanding loyalty and optimism. Many ECC and Lower School teachers and administrators canceled their vacation plans. They worked tirelessly—often twelve-hour days—to make certain that school would open on time, albeit in alternate locations in different Upper East Side neighborhoods.

As she welcomed back the administration, faculty, and staff for the beginning of the 2011–12 year, Head of School Judith Fagin related a story about the great Israeli-American violinst Itzhak Perlman, as described by Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, in his book To Heal a Fractured World.

Perlman came out on the stage at a concert to play a violin concerto. He lay down his crutches and placed the violin under his chin and began tuning the instrument when, with an audible crack, one of the strings broke. The audience expected him to request another string, but instead he signaled to the conductor to begin, and proceeded to play the concerto entirely on three strings. At the end of the performance, the audience gave him a standing ovation and called on him to speak. Reportedly, Perlman said, “Our task is to make music with what remains.”

Clearly, Perlman referred to more than a broken violin string. Throughout his life, he has not allowed setbacks to stand in his way. Likewise, through extraordinary dedication and hard work, the administration, faculty, and staff opened school on time on September 12 for all ECC and Lower School students. They made music with what remained.

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communication among parents, faculty, and staff. The enhanced development office, under the direction of Kenneth Rochlin ’86, has enabled Ramaz to keep up with the increased need for scholarship funds during tough economic times, grow its endowment, and maintain connections with alumni of all generations.

Rabbi Haskel Lookstein stepped down from the day-to-day responsibilities of running the school in 2006, while retaining the title of principal. With the appointment of Judith Fagin, formerly Headmistress of the Middle School, as the new Head of School, Ramaz has at its helm another professional educator and administrator. “She is someone who has devoted herself fully to the needs of the school,” says Rabbi Lookstein. “The leadership of Ramaz cannot be a part-time job. I think that the separation of the leadership of the school from the rabbi of the shul is risky in terms

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Kenneth Rochlin ’86, Director of Institutional Advancement, celebrates at an annual dinner dance with his mentor, Dr. Noam Shudofsky.

LILLIAN JACOBS Lillian Jacobs was one of the most important personalities in the development of Ramaz over its foundational years, from 1938-1972.“Her title was assistant to the principal,” notes Rabbi Haskel Lookstein,“but she was really Rabbi Joseph Lookstein’s alter ego. Together they planned everything involving the smooth administrative and financial functioning of the school. She ran the annual dinner. She ran the school office. She was a combination of director of admissions, bursar, school psychologist, school nurse, and cook”—the last because she developed the school’s lunch program. Jacobs, whose 102nd birthday was in October 2011, modestly prefers not to talk about herself; but when pressed, she admits that “I did everything. In the beginning there were very few children, and the school grew as we went along. It was my greatest privilege to work with Rabbi Joseph and to learn from him, and to learn from everyone with whom I came into contact—parents, teachers.” n What is less known about Ms. Jacobs is the role she played as an unstinting advocate for students who attended Ramaz on scholarships.“Ramaz needs children like yours,” she said to parents apprehensive about meeting Ramaz tuition. She told them with sincerity that their children were welcome in Yorkville whether they came from the Bronx, the West Side, or Lower Manhattan. n Rabbi Haskel Lookstein recalls that Jacobs interacted with every family and child in the school.“She sat with my father whenever he interviewed a new teacher. She had one of the greatest gifts that an educator should have: wisdom.

She knew how to read between the lines.”

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of the continuity of the mission, but it is essential in order to allow the school to function. In Ms. Fagin’s case, the mission is secure.”

Having a woman’s face represent the school underscores Ramaz’s commitment to gender equality and centrist Orthodoxy.

In 2010, the school produced its first strategic plan. “Getting people to think out of the box about where they would like the school to be in five years was a new concept,” says Pamela Rohr, a parent of three alumni and one current student, and the first woman to chair the board of trustees, serving from 2007-2011. The key issues facing Ramaz in the coming years, according to current chair Mr. Doft, are reining in the cost of tuition, finding a replacement for Ms. Fagin (who is retiring as Head of School after the 2011-2012 year), and continuing to make the school more financially transparent. “We have to strike a balance,” he says. “We want to keep the tuition as low as possible but we want to keep the quality of education as high as possible. Those two things aren’t very easy to do at the same time.”

Mr. Doft, who has four children attending Ramaz, says serving on the board “is the best way I know how to make an investment in my kids. I met a lot of the closest friends I have today when I was a child going through Ramaz. I met my wife at Ramaz. I can assume the friends that my children make now will be the ones they’ll keep forever.”

“My hope for Ramaz,” confides Rabbi Lookstein, “is that it will remain a bastion of Modern Orthodoxy, Zionism, Ivrit b’Ivrit, and coeducation. A lot will depend on the next head of school, who I expect will be passionate about the mission of Ramaz.”

Ms. Fagin adds that the school’s future is dependent on maintaining the excellence of its academic model, the superiority its faculty, and the ability to attract outstanding students. To achieve these goals, the school must “continue to question everything we do.” The financial means to continue this “unparalleled” model is critical.

“The proof of the pudding is what happens to our graduates once they leave here,” Ms. Fagin says. Through their involvement in campus and communal life; their positions in business, industry, education, and medicine; and

In 2002, the Upper School choir performed at the Bush White House Chanukah party.

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The Upper School student lounge was renovated in 2011 and has become the new student hot-spot.

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their place within home and family, Ramaz graduates realize the seventy-five-year-old dream of Rabbi Joseph Lookstein.

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Education– Philosophy and Practice

Ramaz offers a unique curriculum that integrates Judaic study, Western thought, physical education, and the fine and performing arts. Students become committed Jews, critical thinkers, and involved citizens.

The class: seventh-grade American History. The time: June 2011. The project: “The Cold War at Home.”

Three students presented their report—the culmination of weeks of work—to their peers and teacher. They had plenty of information to cover in the thirty-five-minute class: blacklisting, Edward R. Murrow, McCarthyism, bomb shelters, the House Un-American Activities Committee, the Rosenbergs, communism. Not only did they present the historical facts; they also discussed the impact on American Jews. The content was deep and broad, but the presentation was just as impressive.

The students used the classroom’s SmartBoard and a laptop to pinpoint, via Google Maps, the geographic locations of important events they described.

They presented Dvolver Moviemaker to teach about McCarthyism, Voki to create a speaking avatar of John F. Kennedy delivering his 1961 inaugural speech, PikiStrips to draw a cartoon strip from photos about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team’s “Miracle on Ice,” and a video of the 1969 moon landing. At the end of the lesson, classmates texted answers to questions posed by the three students, with the correct responses projected on the SmartBoard.

The scene seems far removed from the beginnings of Ramaz—even from the way classes were conducted just a few years earlier. Ramaz continues to remain up-to-date with the newest technologies, although technology is never embraced for its own sake. Yet in the most important way, the school hasn’t changed at all.

The interrelationship between Judaic and General Studies is the heart of the school’s dual curriculum. Each aspect of the curriculum informs the other to create a whole much bigger than its parts. Along the way, students are encouraged to think critically. When the bell rings, students move from a class on prophets to one in physics, or from one in Torah to one in history; in all, efforts are made

‫א ֳהל ֵי שֵם‬ ָ ְ‫יָפְיּותּו שֶל יֶפֶת ב‬ The Integration of Judaism with Western Civilization

The combined Lower School, Middle School, and Upper School libraries contain more than 30,000 books and additional electronic resources.

Even though this early sukkah had to be built indoors, students were able to imagine they were wandering in the desert on their way to Eretz Yisrael.

to cross-pollinate Judaic and Western thought. English and history teachers, for instance, trigger discussions that weave biblical allusions, Jewish ethics, and rabbinic teachings with exploration of literary and historical texts. No matter what classroom they’re in, students learn that Jewish values are relevant across the disciplines.

“With our Western orientation toward history, and in light of our rootedness in the land of Israel, navi is much more likely to be taught in a historical context than it ever was before,” notes Rabbi Dr. Jay Goldmintz, headmaster of the Ramaz Upper School. “Students can more easily bring their appreciation for historiography, geopolitics, and social history when learning navi. There are times when a Torah teacher is invited to speak to a history or English class in order to convey a Jewish perspective. The more we expose kids to this kind of study, the more we hope to create critical thinkers who are both committed Jews and involved citizens.”

In October 1986, when the New York Mets reached the World Series, several Upper School students organized a get-together to watch the much-anticipated fifth game. But Rabbi Joshua Bakst, then Upper School dean, was less than thrilled: the night of the game was also the eve of Hoshana Rabbah, when it is traditional to study Torah all night. Jack Levy ’87, one of the organizers of the event, remembers that “unfortunately, we had already begun publicizing the event.” Levy went to Rabbi Bakst’s office. “We came to an idea of running a ‘G.O. Hoshana Rabbah Learn-In/Mets World Series Night,’ where we would learn and watch the game,” Levy recalls.

“This story captures Rabbi Bakst’s unique desire and talent to balance student desires and the more important ideas and philosophy that Ramaz stands for.”

Today seniors are encouraged to complete an honors thesis on an integrated topic of Judaic and General 50

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Studies interest. In 2009 Rabbi Yigal Sklarin, a Talmud and Jewish History teacher, created an in-depth, interdisciplinary program for juniors that combines religious and secular topics such as the relationship among science, halachah, and modern Zionism. A mini-course, “We the People—Understanding the Relationship between United States Law and Judaism: Comparisons and Conflicts,” examined application of Jewish and Talmudic law in American courts. The school’s World Jewish History course, taught since 1973, covers antiquity through the twenty-first century, highlighting connections and contrasts between Western civilization and the Jewish world.

Judaic Studies

“We are more sensitive than we ever were before to teaching the whole child,” notes Rabbi Goldmintz. “In the Judaic Studies curriculum, we pay close attention to the way that texts speak not only to students’ minds, but to their hearts and souls.” The Judaic Studies curriculum has always emphasized the principle of Torah umadda— Torah combined with secular knowledge. But the Judaic Studies faculty is encouraged to be creative to motivate their students to question and think deeply. Rabbi Kenny Schiowitz, the rosh beit midrash for the Upper School, developed the iMishnah project, which combines Mishnah with music so students can connect to the words in a new way to enhance their learning. He was awarded the prestigious Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award for Excellence in Jewish Education for the project.

The Ramaz educational philosophy, from the very beginning, emphasized that girls and boys were to learn the same sacred texts. This philosophy is a radical reversal of the prevailing custom throughout Jewish history, in which girls and women had been denied both the opportunity to learn Torah and Talmud and to mark their religious coming-of-age with public recognition when they became bat mitzvah. In fact, many girls and women who wanted the same education as their brothers, fathers, husbands, and sons were forbidden to study halachah.

But over the course of the twentieth century and continuing into the twenty-first, there has been an explosion of desire of Orthodox girls and women to study the Torah and Talmud in depth, and the rabbinic injunction that women should not study Torah has been overturned. Within Orthodoxy, many schools and programs that offer study to girls and women admit only girls and women; it remains taboo in many Orthodox communities for males and females to study together. But Ramaz was among the very first schools in which girls learn Torah and Talmud in the same classrooms with boys, along with geometry, physics, and world history.

Teaching Talmud to girls remains a Ramaz hallmark. Along with the Yeshivah of Flatbush and the Maimonides School in Brookline, Massachusetts, Ramaz established the pattern for the hundreds of Jewish day schools that followed. Today, it is de rigueur for Modern Orthodox girls not only to study Torah and Talmud but also to celebrate their bat mitzvah, as they do in Ramaz.

“Fundamentally, it never occurred to my father not to teach boys and girls together,” says Principal Rabbi Haskel Lookstein. “The advantage of teaching coeducational classes of Talmud is that you have 100 percent of the brain power in the class at the same time. Rav [ Joseph B.] Soloveitchik always said you must teach girls Talmud in today’s world. They get the best of education in the secular world; they must get the best education in the Jewish world. To not do that means girls will have an inferior Jewish education, and that will be bad for the Jewish people.”

Torah study also has been egalitarian. In prefeminist years, Rabbi Bakst introduced his students to the commentaries of famed pedagogue Nechama Leibowitz, establishing that women as well as men can achieve the highest levels of Torah scholarship. In 1971, in cooperation with the religious kibbutz department of B’nei Akiva, the school designed a five-month program of study in Israel for girls. Two years later, the first Ramaz winner of Chidon HaTanach HaArtzi, the American Bible Contest—Dr. Deena Cohen Zimmerman—went on to Israel to compete in the International Bible Contest, Chidon HaTanach HaOlami. As more young women are leyning the Torah for their bat mitzvah, more are interested in continuing to leyn in school. They are encouraged to read the Torah in the women’s tefillah groups in both the Middle and Upper Schools.

General Studies

Ramaz’s General Studies curriculum is comparable with that of any independent school. Faculty who keep their fingers on the pulse of new developments in the field of education as well as their fields of specialty are constantly enhancing their classroom lessons. Their accomplishments are recognized not only within the day 51

The Ramaz Middle School—An Identity of its Own Ramaz demonstrated extraordinary vision when it created the Middle School. No doubt, students in grades five and six in the Lower School and seven and eight in the Upper School already were flourishing in their respective environments, but we realized that a dedicated Middle School program could better address the developmental and learning needs of children during their approach to adolescence.

The Ramaz board challenged the educational leadership to conceive of a school program that was not an add-on to one division or a miniversion of a different school. Rather, the Middle School would have an identity of its own. The underlying philosophy of the Middle School was to view education as a time of learning, exploration, identity formation, and personal growth.

Our goal was to create an environment for students in which they could appreciate the value of learning while recognizing their responsibility to themselves, their families, and their communities. Students in the Middle School were empowered to assume leadership positions and have a role in shaping their learning community. In short, we wanted them to begin to realize their potential and self-worth.

We felt privileged to examine our assumptions and design a program to invigorate the Ramaz community. The new division of Ramaz—the Middle School—transformed the institution and the community.

— Eliezer Rubin was the Headmaster of the Middle School from its opening in 1999 until 2006, when he became Headmaster of the Upper School. Since 2009, Rabbi Rubin has been rosh yeshiva of the Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston, New Jersey.

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Rabbi Dale Polakoff teaches a Talmud class in the Upper School beit knesset in the 1980s.

school world but also far beyond. The Middle School has won the Our Town Blackboard Award. According to the Wall Street Journal, Ramaz is one of the top high schools in the United States, based on acceptance rates at top colleges.

The General Studies curriculum offers not only a full range of English, history, mathematics, science, and modern languages, but also Advanced Placement credit in thirteen subjects and accelerated math and science programs with special mentoring opportunities. “The academic curriculum at Ramaz is innovative and creative,” notes Ira M. Miller, Dean of the Upper School. “It is always seeking new experiments in learning and student engagement. We have a faculty that’s open-minded, progressive, and willing to entertain any question. Students feel safe to ask any question without any kind of hesitation.”

One of the school’s great strengths is its environment of open intellectual inquiry. “This atmosphere is created by the community,” Mr. Miller observes. “It is modeled by the teachers, the students, and the parents.” Respectful dialogue and open-mindedness help the school self-regulate, adds Mr. Miller. “Students understand the need to do the right thing because they know what the right thing to do is, not because someone is breathing down their neck.”

Learner-Centered Education

Ramaz supports all students, whether they require extra learning support or opportunities to delve deeper into the curriculum. “We have very high expectations but we try, as much as possible, to tailor the Ramaz education to a student’s specific needs,” says Head of School Judith Fagin. “The educational experience is as individualized as we can make it.”

In the Lower School, students are assessed in both the General and Judaic studies classrooms and given tools to excel, no matter where they stand on the learning continuum. Every General Studies classroom is team-taught by two head teachers, at least one of whom holds an advanced degree in special education. The Learning Center offers academic support in small groups to students with learning disabilities, while an Enrichment Center guides students to work on projects that supplement classroom learning.

The Middle School similarly offers a Learning Center as well as enrichment opportunities. Additionally it provides 54

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skills classes for small groups of students to hone their Tanach, Rashi, or writing techniques, as well as an individualized online program, My Skills Tutor, which provides support and enrichment in math and language arts. All Middle School math and Hebrew classes, as well as seventh- and eighth-grade gemara classes, are tracked, which allows students to work in small groups and to progress at the pace appropriate for them. Meanwhile, a plethora of independent projects is always available to entice Middle Schoolers eager to continue their learning outside the classroom. In the seventh and eighth grades, students may work on open-ended research projects in English, history, and science. Motivated students are encouraged to participate in the National History Day contest; Ramaz has had four national winners. Students may also participate in the Torah Bowl, competing against area yeshivot, and the Chidon HaTanach.

In the Upper School, the Ramaz Scholars program identifies rising ninth graders who demonstrate distinction in any one of a number of talent areas. Each is assigned faculty mentors for his or her high school years. The science research program, which also begins in ninth grade, is designed for students willing to commit to independent laboratory research and summer work at labs and universities. Seniors can shape their own topics as part of independent study and research, whether it’s creating an iPhone app, working on math theorems, or conducting research with faculty members. And the spring minicourses for seniors—there were 112 offerings in 2011—are stunning in their breadth, ranging from biblical criticism and the world through the eyes of midrash to the history of jazz, teen films based on Shakespeare, and the career of Robert Moses. In math, science, Talmud, and foreign language classes, students are grouped according to their strengths. History, English, and the Judaic Studies classes combine all students. Through this process, the school recognizes and nourishes every student’s individual skills and talents.

JUDITH FAGIN Judith Fagin came to Ramaz fifteen years ago from the CUNY Center for Advanced Study in Education. Her first responsibility at Ramaz was to coordinate the Special Education Program throughout the school. She transformed that program and made it an extremely effective instrument for teaching each child in accordance with his or her abilities and needs. n After a brief period as Headmistress of the Junior High School, Ms. Fagin, together with Rabbi Eliezer Rubin, created the Middle School. She designed the special program and unique ambience of the Middle School and made it a jewel in the Ramaz crown. She won the admiration and the respect of a faculty that she assembled to meet the needs of children in that sensitive time in their lives. n Six years ago, she was asked to assume the role of Head of School, the first in the history of Ramaz. During her six years, she has had an amazing impact on every aspect of Ramaz—its administrative organization, its educational plan, its way of communicating with parents, and its attention to the needs of every student. n She is respected by the faculty. She is loved by the students in the school, and she has demonstrated unique understanding of, and support for, parents. n Above all, she embraces the unique mission of Ramaz as a Modern Orthodox school, committed to a first-rate education for boys and girls, a passionate commitment to Torah and mitzvot, and a love for the Jewish people. n She has been a blessing to Ramaz. — Haskel Lookstein

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Ramaz Publications With a dual curriculum and ceaseless after-school commitments, Ramaz students somehow carve out the time to write. The number and types of Ramaz student publications are impressive, ranging from creative writing in several languages to yearbook to newspaper to scholarly journals of every stripe.

Nurtured by dedicated teachers and advisors, our students grow as thinkers and writers, many of whom go on to become journalists, poets, novelists, and professors. And it all started here. As a student remarked a few years ago, “In other high schools the heroes are the athletes and the cheerleaders; here they’re the smart kids.”

In our Middle School, the yearbook is a sweetly traditional publication containing letters of congratulation from teachers and administrators, photos of eighth-grade graduates, brightly colored illustrations, and a smattering of student art and poetry.

Fifth- and sixth-graders produce an English newspaper covering school events; there is also a Hebrew newspaper with creative writing, personal and political essays, and many color photos. Perhaps most impressive are the simple, spiral-bound booklets, averaging about two hundred pages each, of fifth-grade and seventh-grade poetry on topics from basketball to classical music.

In the Upper School, the number of publications available to the students increases greatly. Front and center is The RamPage, the school newspaper, which prides itself on stirring up a bit of controversy now and then, whether it is over breaking school news or in-depth pieces tackling sensitive issues like homosexuality in the yeshiva world. And for those requiring an athletics fix, The Sport Report provides a serious journalistic consideration of worldwide sports.

Ramifications is the Upper School’s award-winning yearbook.

Its two editorial twists are its sarcastic, humorous tone and, at the closing of each book,“The Mind’s Eye” section of student

art, creative writing, and scholarly essays in multiple languages. Senior Booklet, a relatively new publication, is what an old-fashioned yearbook used to be: profiles of all seniors illustrated with their photos.

Parallax, our literary and art magazine, is a beautiful publication celebrating the creativity of our students in fiction, poetry, art, and photography. For eleven straight years, it has been awarded gold medal status by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. In addition, it is a three-time winner of the Gold Crown Award, presented to the best student literary magazines in the country.

At Ramaz, our students not only put out great English-language publications but also wonderful foreign-language periodicals. El Ramillete includes news articles, personal vignettes, and recipes that bring Spanish classroom studies to life, while Tarte ux Pommes, our French publication, contains essays on French culture, sports, and politics, as well as creative writing and film and art critiques.

Toses, our Hebrew publication, comes out twice a year, with one issue focusing on student experiences in Israel, the other examining topics in Judaism and prayer.

And there’s more. A journal of divrei Torah, scholarly interpretations of Jewish texts written by students, alumni, and faculty, is published three times a year—at Chanukah, Purim, and Yom Ha’Atzmaut. Likrat Shabbat is a weekly student publication about the Torah portion. Breakthrough, our science publication, presents breaking news in science research and technology, as well as essays about science and ethics. Even the math enthusiasts at Ramaz get to write for XeVex, which considers mathematical concepts and includes math-related creative writing. If writing is a gateway to serious thinking, then our students are very deep in thought.

— Edith Lazaros Honig has served as college advisor, English teacher, and advisor to Parallax at Ramaz for over twenty years.

She earned her B.A. from Yeshiva University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in English literature from Fordham University.

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Ramaz also has begun to implement a comprehensive review of what is taught in every division through a process known as curriculum mapping. Every teacher documents his or her own lesson plans and shares and examines others’ plans, looking for gaps or redundancies. At the intersection of education and technology, digital curriculum mapping provides a calendar view of courses; reflects what has been actually taught; and details the content of each unit in terms of knowledge, skills, assessments, activities, and resources. This process encourages collaboration among teachers. When completed, the school will possess the first-ever blueprint of everything taught in Judaic and General Studies—across grades and divisions—which will ensure that the curricula remain at the forefront of educational innovation and excellence.

Meanwhile, integration of technology into the classroom at Ramaz begins in kindergarten with the use of SmartBoards. By second grade, students are doing Internet searches; in the Middle School they are taught how to create a website, use programs such as Adobe Photoshop, and create a podcast. The libraries of the three schools have been fully automated in English and Hebrew, replacing card catalogs. The Upper School library now has ten thousand volumes in Hebrew, all of which can be searched online. Since 2008 the use of DiLL—Digital Language Laboratory— has increased the capabilities of the foreign language teachers. The system allows real-time audio communication

DANIÈLE GORLIN LASSNER “I know of many families over the years who became more observant because of their children’s attendance at Ramaz—many,” says Danièle Gorlin Lassner ’55. A member of an early Ramaz class numbering nineteen students, and an administrator and teacher from 1972 through 2007, she witnessed first-hand the spectacular growth of the school. As Dean of Admissions, Mrs. Lassner met personally with a great majority of the prospective parents to both provide a vivid picture of Ramaz and get a sense of why they were interested in Ramaz for their children.

Parents sought out Ramaz, she recalls, because “the cachet of Ramaz was that it excelled in all areas, in modern Hebrew as well as in traditional texts. Everyone knew we offered a well-rounded education.” n Danièle Gorlin Lassner has been described as having a je ne sais quoi quality, the same adjective she uses to describe her beloved alma mater. In addition to serving as Dean of Admissions, Mrs. Lassner also held the positions of Chair of Foreign Languages in the Upper School, Coordinator of Foreign Languages in the Middle School, and Teacher of French and Spanish in grades 7-12. Her many former students are fortunate to have benefited not only from her superior teaching skills but also her infectious joie de vivre. n Lynne Price Frenkel ’86 remembers that Ms. Lassner had “boundless energy” and that “she was dynamic and exciting. She actively engaged us and made us part of the learning process. To teach us verbs she or the students would act them out. I remember her walking to the door and saying, ‘Ouvrez la porte, fermez la porte’—open the door, close the door. From the very first day I entered her classroom, she had me at ‘Bonjour.’”

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Book Day at Ramaz Everyone in the school reading the same book—that’s a “novel” idea—or so it seemed in 2006 when Book Day was introduced to Ramaz Upper School. I conceived the program as a day for students and teachers to attend assemblies and workshops related to the subject of a selected book. It would also be an experience in which relevant Jewish perspectives were included. Its purpose? To enjoy and share the reading experience without the usual pressures of the classroom.

The first Book Day selection was Hiroshima by John Hersey, which describes in an understated tone the horrible effect of dropping the atomic bomb. The choice was particularly appropriate since it was the sixtieth anniversary of the book’s publication.

Sessions included presentations by U.S. veterans who had battled in the Far East, a Japanese American woman who had been imprisoned in an internment camp set up in the United States, and plastic surgeons who discussed operations to repair injuries caused by nuclear radiation. Topics discussed included the ethics of war, the role of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara in saving Jews during the war despite the fact that his country was an ally of Germany, and modern warfare in Israel. Meanwhile, under the direction of the music teacher, students learned a Japanese folk song; in the art studio they worked on origami inspired by the true story of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, about a girl struck by radiation sickness after the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Black Like Me, the 2008 selection, focused on the civil rights movement, especially notable because it was the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Students met with former New York Mayor David Dinkins; several 1960s-era civil rights activists; and Jack Greenberg, legal counsel to the NAACP who argued Brown v. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court, ending the “separate but equal” basis for racial segregation. Again, from soul food to gospel singing, as well as poetry, film, and dance, the day included entertainment fare.

Recent Book Days have introduced videoconferencing, which allowed students in 2010 to communicate directly from their school on New York’s Upper East Side with William Kamkwamba, sitting in his own school in South Africa. Kamkwamba discussed his remarkable story, told in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.

Bryan Mealer, the book’s author, presented a PowerPoint lecture and stayed to enjoy the entire program. In 2011, students again used videoconferencing technology to interview Vikas Swarup, author of Q & A, on which the film Slumdog Millionaire is based, in his capacity as an Indian diplomat in Japan.

When an entire community reads the same book together, perceptions about different people and cultures are broadened and the literary experience is altered. The Ramaz administration has endorsed the program totally, even going so far as to purchase books for distribution to the entire school, including the support staff. The Manfred Lehman Great Minds for Young People endowment has supported the event.

It’s been very gratifying to hear students say it’s their favorite day of the year.

— Esther Nussbaum introduced Book Day at Ramaz Upper School in 2006, and for thirty years was the Upper School’s Head Librarian. She has a Masters in Library Service from Columbia University and an M.A. in English from New York University. Although retired, she continues to chair Book Day.

Much has changed at Ramaz and around the world over the past seventy-five years, but the grandeur of planet Earth never fails to captivate students.

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between students and teachers while simultaneously providing audio language lessons and recording student work. From a computer screen, the teacher can see and hear what each student is working on as well as communicate with one or more students, assign work, and group students into conversations.

Because of its dual curriculum and high expectations, Ramaz has long been known as a challenging school requiring a serious commitment from its students. To help students navigate all their responsibilities, the school provides advisory programs in the Middle and Upper Divisions. The Middle School program, explains Assistant Headmistress Lois Nyren, helps students as they bridge the gap between childhood and adolescence. Small groups of students meet with a faculty advisor for fifteen minutes three times a week, and for forty-five minutes once a week, addressing age-appropriate issues—teasing and bullying, Internet safety, preparing to become bar and bat mitzvah, smoking and drinking, eating disorders, sexuality, and preparing for the transition to the Upper School.

Developed by Ms. Nyren together with Dr. Atara Berliner, director of guidance, the advisory program is constantly being refined. Representatives from other schools come to Ramaz to observe advisory meetings, and Ms. Nyren and Dr. Berliner have conducted workshops to benefit local day schools. “Good middle schools have an advisory program,” observes Ms. Nyren. “What makes us different is that we are mission-driven. Menschlichkeit is the mission of the school, and menschlichkeit is the mission of the advisory program.”

In the Upper School, each faculty advisor works with an average of twelve students, remaining with the same students until graduation. Over the course of four years, advisors sustain an ongoing conversation with students to ensure smooth transitions across grade levels and throughout developmental stages. Advisors and students often develop close bonds. It is not uncommon for students and faculty to text and e-mail each other long after the school day has ended. The Upper School advisory program is supplemented by a full-time health education professional. In the Middle and Upper Schools, religious advisors known as yoatzim additionally address students’ religious needs by planning events, such as Shabbatonim and guest speakers, that focus on Judaic issues and spirituality.

Tangible proof of the school’s educational success comes in Ramaz’s outstanding college admissions record. Ivy

Co-teaching in the Lower School In the Lower School, we have begun to implement a new model for delivery of instruction. Most of our classes are taught by co-teachers, one who has a degree and experience in general education and one who has a degree and experience in special education. These teachers work collaboratively to meet the needs of all of their students. In this model, the general educator serves as the curriculum/ content expert and the special educator serves as the learning/process specialist.

The teachers are each responsible for all of the children in their class and work together in a variety of ways. They may present a lesson together in a model known as “team teaching.” One may take the lead in a lesson while the other plays a secondary role; this model is known as “one teach, one assist.”

Each teacher may work with a group of students and present similar content—a model called “parallel teaching.” Each teacher may take a group and present different material based on the specific needs or interests of the students—a model called “alternative teaching.” This approach can offer an enrichment model or a method for providing remediation. Finally, as one teacher presents a lesson, the other teacher may observe the students as they engage in the learning process—a model called “one teach, one observe.” In each of these scenarios, the teachers are best able to focus on individualizing instruction and meeting students’ specific needs and interests.

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This type of partnership requires extensive planning, exquisite timing, and excellent communication on the part of the teachers involved. All of our collaborative co-teaching teams have benefitted from on-going professional development. We have worked with consultants in the field who have visited our classrooms and provided workshops for teachers.

Ongoing professional readings have also guided our development. We began working with this model in a few classes in the 2009–10 school year. We expanded it in the 2010–11 school year and hope to have complete implementation in the upcoming years.

— Risa Zayde started teaching at Ramaz in 2008 and is Director of Curriculum and Faculty Supervision in the Lower School. She was graduated from City College of New York and has an M.A. from Teachers College, Columbia University.

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Talmud and technology intermingle, making for an exciting lesson in Rabbi Yigal Sklarin’s classroom.

League and other excellent schools have become annual destinations for many Ramaz graduates. “We maintain a strong relationship with colleges, and colleges know and trust the rigor of our program, so students’ applications to Ivy League schools or other great colleges are viewed very seriously,” says Dr. Edith Honig, a longtime teacher and college advisor. “We also have a proven track record of how well our students do once they are in college.” For years the admissions office at Columbia University computed the aggregate grade point averages for high schools with more than fifteen enrolled students. According to former Columbia Admissions Office Director Larry Momo, “Ramaz kids consistently performed the best.” Top universities also appreciate the ethical consciousness of Ramaz students, which makes them valuable members of campus communities, Dr. Honig adds. The key is finding the right school for the right student. “We look for the right fit,” she says, “not just the ‘best’ school a student can get into.”

Art and Music, Drama, and Physical Education

Rav Kook, the prominent twentieth-century Palestine rabbi, famously said, “Literature, painting, and sculpture stand ready to bring to realization all the spiritual concepts imprinted within the depth of the human soul.” The Ramaz philosophy likewise is that classroom learning is only part of the educational experience. From the beginning, Rabbi Joseph Lookstein firmly believed that “the cultivation of the aesthetic is part of the educational process, and the Jewish religion is very much in favor of beauty in all its forms.” Today, Upper School students may choose from more than seventy clubs for everything from set design, Model United Nations, and a Spanish-language newspaper to chorus, audio production, and theater—in addition to field trips, student-led assemblies, and outside experiences that cement the concept of action in the world. These cocurricular activities operate in synchrony with classroom learning and are a pivotal part of the Ramaz experience. “We mold our students with a different kind of education,” explains DeeDee Benel, educational director for student programs in the Upper School. “It’s not enough to just have the kids in the classrooms. They must be involved in social activism and be invested in people.”

In the Athletics Department, eleven girls’ and boys’ Ramaz Ram teams participate in yeshiva leagues. Under the direction of Randy Dulny, Upper School athletic director for the past thirty-one years, teams have won eighteen league championships, but have learned something more valuable. “My teams are always very close,” he says. “I preach family. I tell the teams it’s a family situation; you guys should always get along.” Through sports, Ramaz students learn life lessons, including perseverance, teamwork, following rules, and how to win and lose gracefully. Building trust among the players and coaches, Mr. Dulny teaches everyone to be respectful of each other and of opponents. Jamie Lassner ’82, who coaches the boys’ and girls’ Middle School hockey teams, observes that the most important aspect of athletics is being respectful and courteous. “Being a mensch,” he says, “is far more important than the game or the final 66

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Jewish and General Studies are seamlessly integrated into the Ramaz curriculum in the early 1980s.

Activism Redefined Not that long ago, college campuses were famously known as hotbeds of political and social engagement.

Today, many college students hone their conscience through different forms of activism. We prepare our graduates to grow personally, spiritually, and academically in college as they explore the diverse cultural resources of their campus. When they arrive on campus, they are more than ready to meet the challenges of a wide-ranging community, and they are poised to grow in their understanding and practice of Judaism.

Ramaz graduates demonstrate the strength of their Jewish faith and elicit the best of the U.S. campus experience. They organize minyanim, reach out to the needy, and join interfaith groups to promote mutual respect. When an extreme incident occurs, such as Columbia University president Lee Bollinger extending an invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on campus, our students respond. They contribute to the dynamic diversity of the campus and enhance the experience for everyone.

Colleagues sometimes wonder whether the idealism of campus life—the passion for standing up to authority and demonstrating on behalf of high principle—has disappeared.To my mind, the idealism of college

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score.”

When people appreciate physical beauty, they become capable of appreciating beauty in ideas and values.

In the Lower School, Risa Zayde, director of curriculum and faculty supervision, has refined the art program to expand the children’s experiences with materials, concepts, and creative problem-solving. They learn about established artists and their works and produce interdisciplinary projects relating to classroom instruction. Most important, the students develop skills and techniques to communicate their ideas visually.

In the Middle School, art teacher Beth Reisman, a noted artist herself, emphasizes that the lessons she teaches are about more than an isolated skill or getting a project finished to be graded. She says, “The process of making art is as important as the finished product, and the process is a big part of the art experience. It is not easy to make a good piece of artwork. It takes a lot of practice, including taking risks and making mistakes.” Upper School students learn about art on a sophisticated level under the direction of longtime teacher and Art Department Chair Ellen Rosen.

Each year, students refine conceptual and sequential skills so that, by senior year, those who wish to major in art may take a college-level course taught by Ms. Rosen. Each year, students, parents, faculty, and alumni look forward to the culminating arts project, the Celebration of the Arts, where students display fine arts and photography projects; read original poetry and fiction; and present a wide variety of musical, video, and dance performances.

Music is also central to the school environment in all divisions. In the Lower School, music teacher Chaya Glaser says that the goal is for students to feel confident in their musical voice and to sing melodies with basic harmony. Students’ musical performances throughout the year—kindergarten Zimriah, first-grade Siddur Celebration, second-grade Chumash Celebration, and fourth-grade Zimriah—build a sense of mastery.

“When students and teachers celebrate a momentous Jewish occasion or holiday through music,” says Ms. Glaser, “it creates a strong sense of community.” In the Middle School, students navigate sheet music, learn musical terms, and absorb how harmony, melody, rhythm, form, and tone combine to create songs. But singing remains integral. “We have created a culture at Ramaz where singing is an important part of who we are,” explains music teacher Randi Wartelsky. In addition to the annual Middle School Zimriah, which celebrates Israel’s Independence Day, a mini–musical lab led by Rami Yadid enables students to hone their musical skills.

Students work on their personal compositions, using computer programs to complement their own musical

students hasn’t gone away; it’s matured. I believe the current generation of college students possesses a maturity absent in previous days of radical activism.Today, there is a purposefulness and willingness to encounter the “other,” and to appreciate the connections shared in our global village.

Today’s students understand the challenges they face and recognize their responsibility to work together with respect for each other’s differences and for their essential human dignity. Ramaz students are educated to lead in this initiative and to bring Kiddush Hashem into the diversity.

— Ira Miller was graduated from New York University and earned his M.A. from N.Y.U. in 1975. He has taught and served in the administration at the Upper School since 1982, and is currently the Dean of the Upper School. He is a past president of the Bialystoker Synagogue of the Lower East Side.

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Coeducation and Talmud Education for Girls — Providing Opportunities that Didn’t Exist Elsewhere When Ramaz opened in 1937, there were few Jewish day schools and even fewer that accepted girls. But Ramaz provided equal opportunities in learning to girls from the outset. Most radically, Ramaz offered an equal Talmud education to boys and girls—who learned side by side.

According to Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, “Talmud was always taught to girls because all the classes were coed. Until 1958, girls stopped learning Talmud after the tenth grade. Then they were to take typing in the eleventh grade and home economics in the twelfth. Two girls from my tenth-grade Talmud class—Vivian Eisenberg and Shirah Neiman, class of 1961—were so invested in Talmud that they went to Dr. Goodside, the supervisor of the Upper School, and told him they wanted to continue Talmud in the eleventh and twelfth grades. That was the beginning of the change.”

Other coeducational schools typically allowed girls to learn Talmud as “topics” in specially designed workbooks rather than have them open a tractate. But Ramaz remained firm in its equal approach when it initiated its Special Talmud track. Girls were always well-represented in these advanced classes.

Ramaz’s approach has certainly not been without its detractors. I remember being told that if I pursued my

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instruments.

The Upper School music program, under the direction of Daniel Henkin ’85, offers one of the most comprehensive music educations in a Jewish day school today. Students take semester- or yearlong courses in music appreciation, history, and theory in addition to mini-courses in jazz, rock, a capella, and choral arranging. Upper School performance ensembles include a band, percussion ensemble, and two choirs. Students learn the latest music technology in a fully equipped music studio.

Students have performed at the invitation of the White House; at the Jewish Choral Festival, sponsored by the Zamir Chorale; and at the North American Jewish Choral Festival.

Theater is another hallmark of the Ramaz education. Gail Hadani, an award-winning fashion photographer and former opera singer, has directed the Middle School theater program for the last twelve years. In addition to presenting classics such as Annie and Fiddler on the Roof, Ms. Hadani has produced musicals she has written herself, which deal with difficult topics such as stuttering and bullying. Her work

personal love of Talmud, no one would ever marry me. However, Ramaz followed the example of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik. As he wrote in a 1953 letter, “It would be a very regrettable oversight on our part if we were to arrange separate Hebrew courses for girls.

Not only is the teaching of Torah she’be-al peh [Talmud] to girls permissible but it is nowadays an absolute imperative. . . . Boys and girls alike should be introduced to the inner halls of Torah she’be-al peh.”

I am grateful to the school for its coeducation and Talmud education. Without this background, I would never have become a halachic advisor or been able to contribute to the field of medicine and halachah.

And by the way, I met my husband when we were paired as a gemara hevruta [partner in study of Talmud].

— Deena (Cohen) Zimmerman ’80 is a physician and one of the first yoatzot halachah (women’s halachic counselors) certified by Nishmat. Dr. Zimmerman is medical advisor for the Nishmat Women’s Health and Halacha Website.

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captures “all the things that kids might feel but are afraid to say,” Ms. Hadani says. Students participate in all aspects of the performances, including set design. Shy and unsure students are included. Ms. Hadani explains, “Middle School children are in very formative years. They can be self-conscious about socially finding their way. I strive to give them a chance to feel like stars, making sure each has a chance to perform something special. Through the rehearsal process they gain confidence, poise, knowledge of stagecraft, knowledge of how to participate in an ensemble, and a strong sense of accomplishment.”

Upper School theatrical performances, produced by Caroll Goldberg, the longtime director of performing arts, are remarkable for their professional quality. With extraordinary sets designed by student members of the stage crew and the highly skilled audiovisual squad, the school auditorium is transformed into the Ramaz Theater. “Our students’ involvement in performing arts inspires self-confidence and self-discipline,” notes Ms. Goldberg. “It exposes them to the beauty of other cultures and ideas, and enhances their personal and social development by allowing them to experience the joy of working together to create something beautiful and meaningful.”

Ramaz performances are the highlight every year at the annual Dinner Dance and the Salute to Israel Parade.

The dance ensemble has performed at the Israel Folk Dance Festival. The percussion ensemble has performed for the Jewish Performing Arts Project. Through performance, students comfort children in the hospital at Chanukah and somberly mark Holocaust Day at local synagogues. Upper School choral selections and performances are available online at ramaz.tv.

Ramaz graduates are committed to Torah while embracing secular education, the arts, and the modern world.

In New York City, a résumé with Ramaz carries weight because it communicates a unique type of knowledge, a broad sense of self, and a deep connection to the world. Ramaz molds a scholar at home with him- or herself and society, a citizen as comfortable in the synagogue as the boardroom, a parent as aware of Jewish tradition as U.S. culture, a Zionist in touch with Israel and its people. This is the value of a Ramaz education, and it continues to appreciate each year.

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Finding Nerve and Confidence through Ramaz Theater “If I only had the nerve.”

This famous Cowardly Lion phrase from The Wizard of Oz resonated with me from my youth, but it was the theater program at Ramaz that gave me the confidence.

I was a shy kid when I joined the school musicals in fifth grade and took a comfortable place on the backstage crew. A year later, director Gail Hadani nudged me into the limelight with small roles, but I was hardly a natural performer. “Stiff as wood” is what my friend’s father called me. But in the eighth grade, Gail cast me as Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls. I was as nervous as ever, but the show was a success and people complimented me (though on the videos, all I saw was more stiffness).

Then came Upper School theater, under the direction of Caroll Goldberg, where I worked in productions such as Rags and Rumors. Indeed, it was Rumors that gave me a boost of self-confidence. To see how people reacted when I just let go and had fun was amazing and from then on, I was fearless.

Junior year, I played the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. I interpreted the role differently from others, concluding she was not so much wicked as she was insecure and consumed with fears—a struggle I knew and lived. On stage that first night, clad in witch’s garb, I felt all the anxieties I imagined in my character. I received many compliments, but most importantly, I felt the satisfaction of knowing I had played the role the best that I could.

Later, Ms. Goldberg appointed me as assistant director for the fall musical. We held auditions, cast the show, and conducted rehearsals—and then we were told that due to a licensing complication we couldn’t do the show we had planned. I was devastated. How would we ever prepare for a new production before December? But we didn’t miss a beat. We immediately picked Beauty and the Beast and three days later, started rehearsals. I was so proud of the entire cast; they took it all in stride.

The highlight of my last term was Little Shop of Horrors. Dani Roth and I were chosen as the directors. We worked together for over four months, with less than a month for rehearsals. It was a huge undertaking, but we had an amazing group to work with us and we staged a fantastic production.

The theater program at Ramaz allowed me to develop one of the great passions in my life and gave me the confidence—and, yes, finally nerve.

— Jason Eisner ’11

Hebrew is Our Language

Hebrew is the glue that connects different aspects of Jewish identity, and it is the core of the Ramaz experience. No surprise, then, that Ramaz students are deeply attached to Judaism and Israel.

First-graders giggle as they walk with their teachers through Central Park on a late October morning. The leaves are in the midst of turning into a rainbow of hues. The teachers quiet the students and point to maples, oaks, and elms brilliantly awash in color. “What colors do you see?” one teacher asks the children in Hebrew. “Adom!” shout several. “Tsahov! Kahtom!” Red! Yellow! Orange! It’s as natural a response as the changing of the seasons.

A sixth-grade class discusses Eliezer ben Yehuda, the driving force behind the modern revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, and Shai Agnon, the leading figure of twentieth-century Hebrew fiction. Twelfth-graders taking an elective class on Israeli cinema study the country’s society and politics before screening Hebrew movies The Ivrit program has been a cornerstone from the start. Through the language, Ramaz cultivates students’ ability to integrate Jewish identity with all aspects of Israel: culture, people, religion, ethics, geography, the ancient past, and the future. “The Hebrew language is the glue that connects different parts of Jewish identity,” says Dana Barak, chair of the Hebrew Language Department in the Middle and Upper Schools. “Jewish identity is composed of various aspects: religious, historical, and cultural. In Ramaz, students are exposed to all these aspects through the Hebrew language curriculum.”

The connection between Hebrew and Jewish identity has roots in the Zionist movement of the 1880s, when Hebrew was revived. At the time, Hebrew was used in prayer and literature, not as a spoken language. Yiddish was the language of immigrating Jews and virtually all yeshivot. Hebrew, those opposed to its reintroduction argued, was the “holy tongue” and shouldn’t be used for conversation or any purpose outside of study.

Like his grandfather-in-law, Rabbi Joseph Lookstein was accomplished in ancient Hebrew, the language of Torah and rabbinic literature. He also was quite aware of the efforts around the world to adapt Hebrew to become a viable spoken language. When he first dreamed, during the late 1920s, of creating a

‫שֶֹּלא שִּנּו אֶת ל ְׁשֹונ ָם‬ We Remain Faithful to Our Language

‫עברית‬ ‫ישיבת רמז‪ ,‬בהווסדה‪ ,‬חרתה על דגלה “לימודי יהדות‪ -‬בעברית”‪ .‬מגן‬ ‫הילדים ועד לכתה יב’ היתה השפה העברית חלק בלתי נפרד מיומו של‬ ‫התלמיד; המורים והתלמידים דברו‪ ,‬למדו‪ ,‬כתבו‪ -‬גם התווכחו‪ ,‬בעברית‪.‬‬ ‫עברית ללא תרגום‪ ,‬עברית ללא פשרות‪.‬‬ ‫ידיעת השפה העברית‪ ,‬לבד מן התועלת השימושית‪ ,‬יצרה קשר בלתי‬ ‫אמצעי‪ ,‬בין התלמיד לעמו ותרבותו‪ ,‬ובין התלמיד לארצו‪ -‬למדינת ישראל‪.‬‬ ‫ואכן‪ ,‬אחוז גדול של בוגרי רמז‪ ,‬בסיימם את בית הספר התיכון‪ ,‬באים‬ ‫לישראל לשנת לימודים בישיבות ובמדרשות השונות‪ .‬בוגרים אלה‬ ‫משתלבים יפה‪ ,‬ומיד‪ ,‬בזרם הכללי של הכתות ה”ישראליות” שהלימודים‬ ‫מתנהלים בהן על טהרת השפה העברית‪.‬‬ ‫כך גם עתה‪ ,‬כשישיבת רמז חוגגת את יובלה ה‪ ,75 -‬הנכנס לבית הספר‬ ‫היסודי ימצא את העברית שַלטת בַכֹל; המורים מדברים עברית בטבעיות‪,‬‬ ‫בקצב שוטף‪ ,‬והתלמידים מבינים וקולטים את השפה העדכנית לגווניה‪.‬‬ ‫ככל שהתלמידים מתבגרים‪ ,‬ומתקדמים מכתה לכתה‪ ,‬כן מתקדמת ידיעתם‬ ‫את השפה‪ .‬הוא הדין בחטיבת הבינים‪ .‬שם לומדים חומש‪ ,‬נביאים ולשון‬ ‫עברית‪ ,‬בעברית‪.‬‬ ‫לא כן הדבר ב”שיחות חולין”‪ ,‬בשלב זה‪ ,‬כשהתלמיד החל להתבגר והוא‬ ‫חשוף ֹרב שעותיו לשפת האם‪ -‬לאנגלית‪ ,‬שפתו זאת מתפתחת ומתעשרת‬ ‫בקצב מהיר שאין השפה העברית יכולה להדביקו‪ֶ ,‬חסֶר זה בולט במיוחד‬ ‫בהוראת תלמוד‪ .‬בשל אופיה של הספרות התלמודית שבנויה על‬ ‫“שקלא וטריא”‪ ,‬וחלק הארי מתוכה בלשון ארמית‪ ,‬נוטים המורים ללכת‬ ‫בדרך הקצרה‪ -‬ארוכה‪ ,‬ונכנעים לשפה האנגלית‪.‬‬ ‫בבית הספר התיכון גדלים הפערים בין המחלקות השונות‪ .‬המחלקה ללשון‬ ‫וספרות שומרת היטב על ציביונה; תוכנית הלימודים מעודכנת‪ ,‬הכל‬ ‫מתנהל בעברית והתלמידים נחשפים ליצירות עבריות קלאסיות‪ ,‬ספרות‬ ‫מודרנית‪ ,‬גם פוסט‪ -‬מודרנית‪.‬‬ ‫במחלקות לתנ”ך ותלמוד אמנם קיימים הרצון הטוב והנאמנות לשפה‬ ‫העברית‪ ,‬אבל חסרה הדבקות הבלתי מתפשרת‪ .‬כתוצאה‪ ,‬מתנהלות ֹרב‬ ‫הכתות בשתי שפות‪ ,‬מין כלאים של עברית ואנגלית‪.‬‬ ‫הסיבות לכך רבות ושונות‪ ,‬ואין זה המקום לפורטן‪ -‬לבד מדבר אחד‪:‬‬ ‫המוסדות והמדרשות למיניהם אינם מתיחסים ברצינות מספקת לנושא‬ ‫של הכשרת מורים להוראה בשפה העברית – “עברית בעברית”‪ ,‬מי יתן‬ ‫ומוסדות אלו יחזירו עטרה ליושנה ויתחדשו ימינו כקדם‪.‬‬ ‫‪— Joshua S. Bakst‬‬

East Eighty-Fifth Street was closed to traffic on Yom H’aAtzmaut in the early 1970s so that Ramaz could celebrate Israel’s independence publicly.

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coeducational day school, he envisioned the use of Hebrew in all Judaic studies. He had numerous conversations with Dr. Pinchus Churgin, then an instructor at the Hebrew Teachers’ Institute on the Lower East Side. Dr. Churgin, later the first director of Jewish studies at Ramaz, agreed with the rabbi that Hebrew was the national tongue of the Jewish people and that all teachers would need to be fluent.

Rabbi Mayer Moskowitz recalls that what struck him most about Ramaz during his first years with the school in the mid-1960s was how connected it was to Ivrit and Zionism. “When you walked into the school, you knew you were walking into a Zionist, Hebrew, Modern Orthodox school,” he said. “There were pictures of wBen-Gurion and President Zalman Shazar on the walls, and the names of streets from Israel. There was a Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebration, with music and singing. Noam Shudofsky made sure there was Israeli art on the walls.

And good art. Expensive, not schmatas.”

Rabbi Moskowitz, in the late 1970s, introduced to grades one through six the Tal Am and Tal Sela curricula, still in use. The programs are built on the premise that the best learning environment for children is one that communicates knowledge through a variety of activities using each of the five senses. Instead of relying only on textbooks, these curricula incorporate visual aids such as music and games. During the early 1980s, Rabbi Moskowitz joined groups of Ramaz Ivrit teachers on two-week trips to Israel to study with Torah scholar Nechama Leibowitz and take classes in education.

Today, Ivrit b’Ivrit is the central pedagogical approach. The program begins in the Early Childhood Center,

RABBI JOSHUA S. BAKST Passionate about teaching. Sardonically funny. Meticulously attentive to detail. Creates intellectual excitement. Sets high goals and expects them to be achieved.

Makes the Torah and Talmud come alive. Always a mensch. n These are some of the characteristics ascribed to Rabbi Joshua S. Bakst, administrator and teacher of Torah and gemara, by his current and former students. They describe a teacher who respects his students and prods them to trust their own interpretations, even as he leads them to explore the interpretations of our great commentators. His pedagogical approach is exciting and indicative of what makes the Ramaz educational experience extraordinary. At Ramaz, it’s not only what you know, but how you think, that is vital. n Rabbi Bakst was hired in 1964 to teach Talmud and Tanach, and in 1970 he joined the administration, serving as headmaster of Judaic Studies. In the late 1970s Rabbi Bakst oversaw Judaic studies for grades four through twelve. In 1980 he became dean of the Upper School, managing the division’s operations. n Widely and deeply learned, thoughtful and contemplative, passionately committed to educational excellence and Ivrit b’Ivrit, Rabbi Bakst has helped to shape the school’s environment of open intellectual dialogue, thereby influencing Modern Orthodoxy at large—for what is Modern Orthodoxy if not a commitment to active struggle with ideas?

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Plunging Into Hebrew— Language Immersion in the Lower School In the Early Childhood Center, students as young as three are completely immersed in Hebrew. One teacher speaks only in Hebrew, never in English, and Hebrew is integrated into all the lessons, in all subjects, beginning in nursery. This immersion program, which debuted in 2007 and is now used in all ECC classes, makes Hebrew a natural part of the school environment. In addition, even at the earliest ages, Hebrew is taught through direct instruction.

This program capitalizes on children’s window of opportunity to soak up a second language at the earliest ages. When the students advance to the Lower School, all Judaic subjects are taught strictly in Hebrew. In fact, the Hebrew materials in grades one through four have been completely customized.

Although we use established programs and curricula such as Chalav U’Dvash and Tal Am, our teachers have had to create their own materials to keep up with the students, and these materials are always evolving. When the students enter the Middle School, they are ready for the challenges.

We wouldn’t be able to offer this dynamic, customized, ever-changing program if it weren’t for our Hebrew teachers. They collaborate, share materials and ideas, and work together as a team. Americans and Israelis work together, and the students feel the warmth.

Through immersion, our students develop the skills to learn Torah with commentaries in Hebrew without needing to rely on others’ translations. Also, as Hebrew increasingly becomes the common language of the Jewish people in Israel and the rest of the world, our students are able to communicate with fellow Jews wherever life may take them.

— Alan Berkowitz ’79 is Headmaster of the Lower School.

‫לשון עברית ברמ”ז— מבט חינוכי ואישי‬ ‫בשנת תשמ”ט‪ ,‬אחרי עשר שנות מגורים בישראל‪ ,‬בהן מלאתי תפקידים‬ ‫שונים במערכת החינוך שם‪ ,‬הוזמנתי להצטרף להנהלת ישיבת רמ”ז‪,‬‬ ‫בית הספר שבו הייתי תלמידה בשנים תשי”ח – תשכ”ט‪ ,‬ואני גאה להיות אחת‬ ‫מבוגרותיו‪.‬‬ ‫אחת מאבני היסוד של רמ”ז‪ ,‬היתה הוראת לימודי‪-‬יהדות בשפה העברית‪.‬‬ ‫לא זו בלבד‪ ,‬גם שפת התקשורת בין המורים לתלמידים‪ ,‬היתה עברית –‬ ‫לא רק בכתה‪ ,‬בתהליך ההוראה‪ ,‬אלא גם בשיחות – חולין היתה עברית‬ ‫השפה השלטת‪ .‬עד היום‪ ,‬כשאני נזכרת במוריי‪ ,‬אני “שומעת” אותם מדברים‬ ‫אלי בעברית‪.‬‬ ‫בשובי‪ ,‬הפעם כחברת הנהלה‪ ,‬נדהמתי והתאכזבתי לשמוע את אותם המורים‬ ‫מדברים עם תלמידים באנגלית‪ .‬שנות לימודי ברמ”ז היוו תקופה אחרת בחינוך‬ ‫היהודי‪ ,‬בארה”ב בכלל וברמ”ז בפרט‪ .‬השפה העברית לא היתה שפה “שניה”‪,‬‬ ‫היא היתה חלק בלתי נפרד מחיי יום‪-‬יום‪ ,‬חמישים אחוז (ויותר) מן הזמן ששהינו‬ ‫בביה”ס דברנו עברית‪ .‬אנגלית‪ ,‬שפת האם שלנו‪ ,‬היתה בסך הכל “ראשונה בין שווים”‪.‬‬ ‫עד כתה ו’ קראנו ודברנו עברית בהברה אשכנזית‪ ,‬ואני מציינת בתודה עובדה‬ ‫זאת‪ .‬הברה זאת היא אשר עזרה (ועוזרת) לי לנקד נכונה טכסט עברי בלא‬ ‫שאצטרך להזדקק לכללי דקדוק יבשים שקשה ליישמם בפועל‪.‬‬ ‫אני יודעת להבחין בין פתח לקמץ‪ ,‬בין אות דגושה לאות רפה‪ ,‬וכמו כן להטות‬ ‫פעלים ולנתחם‪ .‬לתלמידים בישראל חסרות מיומנויות אלה‪ ,‬וחבל‪.‬‬ ‫מכתה ו’ ומעלה עברנו למבטא המקובל בישראל – “המבטא הספרדי”‪.‬‬ ‫מעבר זה לא היה טכני בלבד‪ ,‬הוא הביע והפגין את הזדהותנו עם מדינת‬ ‫ישראל והרעיון הציוני‪.‬‬ ‫מורי בבית הספר היסודי‪ ,‬היו בוגרי החינוך היהודי אמריקאי‪ ,‬ומורי בתיכון – משכילים‬ ‫וישראלים‪ .‬המורים כולם‪ ,‬ללא יוצא מן הכלל‪ ,‬דברו עברית רהוטה‪ ,‬נכונה ומדויקת‪.‬‬ ‫תוכנית הלימודים שילבה בתוכה את שפת התנ”ך‪ ,‬ספרות ימי הביניים‪ ,‬ספרות‬ ‫ההשכלה והספרות החדשה‪ .‬כך למדנו להתמודד עם טכסטים עבריים‬ ‫מתקופות שונות‪ .‬למדנו קטעי תלמוד בארמית וידענו לתרגם אותם לעברית‪ ,‬גם למדנו‬ ‫את העברית של פרשני המקרא לתקופותיהם‪.‬‬ ‫הדגש שהושם ברמ”ז על העברית מהווה נכס ותשתית לגיבוש הערכים שבהם‬ ‫דוגלת ההנהלה‪ :‬אחדות העם‪ ,‬הכשרה להתמודד עם מקורות מורשתנו‪ ,‬עידוד‬ ‫והכשרה לעליה ולהתישבות במדינת ישראל והשתלבות בחייה האזרחיים‪.‬‬ ‫ההכשרה שקבלנו ברמ”ז‪ ,‬הן בידיעת הלשון‪ ,‬והן במקורות תרבותנו‪ ,‬תוכל‬ ‫לשמש כאידיאל ערכי לרמ”ז של ימינו ולחינוך היהודי בישראל ובתפוצות‪.‬‬

‫‪— Beverly Gribetz ’69, a former Assistant Dean of the Upper School and Headmistress of the Ramaz‬‬ ‫‪Junior High School, is principal of Tehilla-Evelina de Rothschild Secondary School for Religious Girls‬‬ ‫‪in Jerusalem. She was graduated from Barnard College and earned her M.A. from Harvard Graduate‬‬ ‫‪School of Education and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of the Jewish Theological Seminary.‬‬

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At an early model Seder, students practice urchatz, the ceremonial washing of the hands.

Living the Great Experiment in Jewish History Students often ask why, when I was twenty-two, I exchanged my native country and comfortable surroundings—where Jews have achieved unprecedented political stability, economic prosperity, and cultural vibrancy—for a tiny state in the Middle East whose short history has been plagued by periodic wars, constant threat of terrorism, economic turmoil, and seemingly irreconcilable internal fracture. My wife Naomi and I were inspired by schools like Ramaz, in which Israel is central, and also by our precollege year in Israel learning Torah. But of course, there was more to our decision to make such a bold move.

The response I offer expresses the depth and complexity of my experience.

I point out that our decision to make aliyah does not reflect a rejection of American society and the rich Jewish communal life it sustains. On the contrary, we are proud of our U.S. roots, so much so that we sent our children to the United States to work as counselors in Camp Moshava and gain exposure to American Jewish life prior to their Israeli army service.

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where students as young as three participate in the Hebrew immersion program that began in 2007. Every nursery, prekindergarten, and kindergarten classroom has two teachers, one of whom speaks only in Hebrew. The curriculum includes the Chalav u’Dvash program of conversational Hebrew that teaches by using Ivrit in everyday situations.

Hebrew is a natural part of the ECC school environment. “If they’re baking or going to recess or going to Petco, as one of the classes did yesterday to buy fish for the classroom, they are doing everything in Hebrew as well as in English,” explains Hedva Ofek-Shai, director of the Lower School’s Hebrew language curriculum and architect of the immersion program. “It is the most natural way.”

One significant reason the immersion program succeeds is that the ECC and Lower School faculty—90 during the 2010–11 school year for 430 students—is exceptionally trained, the majority having master’s degrees. They divide the students into small groups, differentiate assignments, and share the classroom focus with their coteacher, enabling the class to benefit from two teachers with different points of view.

“Everything we do is based on research and leadership that’s current with what’s going on in the field of education,” adds Rabbi Alan Berkowitz ’79, headmaster of the Lower School. “We give thought to how we teach, and we constantly modify the program. I don’t know of another day school that’s as research-driven and willing to experiment and tinker and get at the best approach to the instruction of young children.”

Children entering the first grade can read and write Ivrit, and also speak and understand it. They become full participants in the Lower School’s vibrantly beautiful Rosh Chodesh program, singing the tehillim in beautiful Hebrew. By the time they reach the Middle and Upper Schools, they are publishing Hebrew-language newspapers and performing all-Hebrew plays.

For the Lower School, Hebrew materials have been customized to keep up with students, Ms. Ofek-Shai says.

No current curriculum in print fits the division’s needs. “We always are determining the goals, figuring out the learning strategies, revising the materials, creating games and activities.” Three times a year, Ms. Ofek-Shai and the Ivrit teachers assess every Lower School student and modify their instruction based on the results. For example, in 2011, second- and third-graders used more advanced books from Israel that couldn’t be used in the past. In addition, Hebrew script was introduced in the first grade at the beginning of the school year because the students already recognized all the Hebrew letters in print.

“When you really know Hebrew,” Ms. Ofek-Shai says, “you can really pray in shul. You can understand the halachot, the mitzvot. You can study the chumash. It is never the same if you rely on a translation. If you don’t really

Ironically, much of my attraction to Israel stems from its somewhat precarious existence. Not the physical danger, but the sense of being a participant in a civilization in the making—and not any society, but the first sovereign Jewish state established on our original homeland in nearly two millennia. For me, the opportunity to participate in this grand journey, and perhaps contribute to its advancement, was and remains a great source of excitement and inspiration.

Nearly twenty-five years after arriving in Israel, I have no illusions regarding the many difficult challenges, tragedies, and disappointments that so often undermine collective Israeli life. All the same, we live in the most dynamic and meaningful historic human laboratory I can imagine. I am grateful to God that as twenty-two-year-old Jewish day-school graduates from New York we had the prescience—or possibly the audacity—to establish our home in Israel.

— Adam S. Ferziger ’82 is senior lecturer and vice chairman of the Graduate Program in Contemporary Jewry at Bar-Ilan University and is the author of numerous books and articles.

Living in Israel since 1987, he is a recipient of Bar-Ilan’s “Outstanding Lecturer” award. Ferziger was graduated from Yeshiva University, where he received his B.A., M.A., and rabbinical ordination. He earned his Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan.

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In the early 1950s, when Israel was only several years old, Ramaz students were hungry to devour the language of their homeland.

know Hebrew, there are so many layers that you just can’t understand. Of course, there is the obvious benefit that when you go to Israel, you can read the newspapers and relate to Zionism better and understand the culture. But there is something else you get from the language: the emotion, the connection.”

Beginning in fifth grade, Middle School students work on the comprehension of Hebrew text without the benefit of translation. They use Hebrew to discuss everyday topics and express opinions. By the end of that year, they are composing short essays. In addition, students have four Ivrit language classes each week that focus on grammar through the study of Israeli poetry, media, and culture. These classes use biblical language to reveal to students the roots of Hebrew words and their word families.

Sixth-graders study texts of different genres and styles such as prayer, media headlines, and short stories. They paraphrase texts and undertake creative writing projects. Seventh-graders use Hebrew to discuss the importance of archaeological discoveries in Israel. Eighth-graders study the medieval poetry of Yehuda Halevi and Shlomo bin Gabirol.

In the spring, the eighth grade takes a weeklong trip to Israel, where, surrounded by the language and culture, whether in urban areas or on field trips, all their studies pay off.

The primary aim of the Upper School Ivrit program is to help students use the basic language skills they’ve already acquired—proficiency in reading, writing, speaking, and understanding Hebrew—to gain a deeper understanding of their religious and cultural heritage, past and present. It’s an ambitious curriculum, incorporating skills such as syntax, sentence structure, conjugation, vocabulary, oral comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing in daily lessons within the context of relevant themes. Ninth-graders look inward to focus on mashma’ut hashem, or the significance of one’s name. Tenth-graders grapple with the subject of differences among people.

Eleventh-graders dive into the works of Israel’s most celebrated poetry, reflecting different motifs of the biblical 92

In 2009, Upper School students rally against Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and show their support of Israel, in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza near the United Nations.

Protesting Our Way to Israel In the fall of 1971 I was a Ramaz senior. My classmates submitted their college applications and looked forward to a relaxed pace. The school offered a part-time work/study program for the second half of senior year, although it was really an opportunity to spend a lot of time in Central Park and at the movies. But my close friend Rachel Moskowitz Winkler and I had bigger plans. We decided to spend the second semester studying in Israel. To do so, however, we needed the approval of the school. Otherwise, we risked not graduating, which was not an option as far as our parents were concerned. We discussed our plan with Rabbi Joshua S. Bakst, who was the Headmaster, Judaic Studies at the time, and who supported the idea in theory, but we still needed Principal Rabbi Joseph Lookstein’s consent.

At first, Rabbi Lookstein and several administrators were adamantly opposed to allowing seniors to leave before the end of the year. Meanwhile, time was running out—we needed to submit our applications and teachers’ recommendations to Machon Gold (the now-closed women’s seminary in Jerusalem we had applied to)—but couldn’t get the administration to seriously consider our proposal. Fortunately, Ramaz students in the late 1960s and early 1970s were taught two things very well: a deep sense of commitment to Israel and the power of political demonstrations. Hadn’t we often been sent to demonstrate in front of the Russian and Iraqi missions and in Washington during the Six-Day War? Armed with those experiences (I’m sure this was Rachel’s idea!), we started demonstrating in front of Rabbi Lookstein’s office on the second floor. Our placards and shouting made it clear to any visitors to the office that we were going to prevail.

Our efforts paid off. We arrived in Jerusalem in January 1972. Despite our bravado at Ramaz, we were quite nervous about leaving our families, living in a dorm, and starting in a new school. But whatever reservations the school had disappeared. It quickly became apparent to the faculty that we were well-prepared and took our studies seriously. We were also fortunate to study with some outstanding educators. Nechama Leibowitz taught us parshat hashavua (a humbling experience) and left us with a lifelong passion for studying chumash. Rabbi Aaron Rakefet led riveting discussions about Judaism and life.

A chance bus-stop meeting led to my making new friends, who virtually adopted me and in whose home I had most of my Shabbat meals. Forty years later, I maintain a close relationship with their children and grandchildren.

Rachel and I returned home at the end of June, though unfortunately not in time for graduation, where our mothers proudly marched up to the stage to collect our diplomas; neither of us had wanted to miss the last days of the semester in Jerusalem. We went home with an intensified love of Israel and Torah study. Within a few years, Ramaz began encouraging seniors to study for a year in Israel (after graduation!), which has become a central part of a Ramaz education.

— Wendy Apfell Greenbaum ’72 was graduated from Barnard College and from the Columbia School of International Affairs. She was a member of the Ramaz Board of Directors for many years, serving as its secretary from 2002 to 2008. She lives in New York and works in real estate.

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sacrifice of Isaac. “The language is modern,” explains Ms. Barak, “but includes words from the Torah.” Again, the Hebrew curriculum connects the language with religious identity.

By senior year, students choose one of four electives: modern Israel, Israeli film, Israeli newspapers, or contemporary culture through Israeli eyes. There are no textbooks. Students must have strong knowledge of Ivrit to understand the nuances and conflicts discussed in the classroom. Students attend Israeli movie festivals and lectures by Israeli authors.

The school’s connection to Israel carries over into a postgraduate year of study. Today, approximately half of Ramaz graduates opt to attend a yeshiva or seminary in Israel before settling into their freshman dorm back in the United States. When they arrive in Israel, it’s evident that they are unusually well-prepared. A lifetime of studying the language, the country, and the culture equips them with skills and confidence.

The Ivrit curriculum offers students tools to think critically about Israel not just as a religious homeland but also as a modern, sovereign state with complex political and social issues. A deep understanding of Israeli history, language, and society forms the basis for open, engaged discussion.

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Developing Jewish Responsibility

“Then I heard the voice of God asking, ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here I am; send me’” (Isaiah 6:8).

In 1972, when Jews in the Soviet Union were forbidden to practice Judaism, and were imprisoned if they were discovered to be in violation, Rabbi Haskel Lookstein traveled to Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev over Sukkot to meet with his Soviet Jewish brothers and sisters. Under Soviet rule, Americans could not overtly give Soviet Jews the siddurim and other religious objects they desperately wanted.

Even gathering as Jews was enormously risky.

For Rabbi Lookstein, the trip was a profound awakening. It crystallized for him two ideas that he had explored in sermons at Kehilath Jeshurun and touched on in classes at Ramaz—the concepts of chesed and menschlichkeit. It reaffirmed for him the value of activism. “I saw what it was possible to do when you do not stand idly by while your brother’s blood is spilled,” he recalls. “My missions to the former Soviet Union changed my life from a somewhat passive existence to an active, involved existence, and I realized what this kind of involvement could mean for young people.” He began to think about how to involve Ramaz students in performing acts of communal responsibility. He realized that student involvement in advocacy could have a tremendous educational impact.

Activism was not new to Rabbi Lookstein. Rabbi Moses Z. Margolies, his great-grandfather, had been a leading Zionist in the early twentieth century as a member of the Mizrachi Organization of America. At the time, many U.S. Zionist leaders were Reform and Conservative rabbis. The RaMaZ, however, was an early Orthodox exception. At one Zionist rally, he shared a stage with the preeminent Reform rabbi Stephen S. Wise. At one point during his presentation, Rabbi Wise turned to the RaMaZ and told the audience, “Look what Zionism can do. It can bring to the same platform a goy like me and a sage like Rabbi Margolies.” In 1933, when he was eighty-two and in poor health, the RaMaZ left his sickbed to address a mass protest against Nazi antisemitism at Madison Square Garden. He received a standing ovation from the twenty thousand people

‫אחָד‬ ֶ ‫וְנָתַתִי לָהֶם ל ֵב‬ We Are All One with Humankind

In 1985, students support Anatoly Sharansky’s hunger strike and demand his release from Soviet prison and labor camp.

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in attendance.

In the 1960s Rabbi Lookstein spoke in favor of civil rights, endorsed farm workers’ rights, and facilitated the school’s Moratorium Day program in October 1969 to question the Vietnam War. It was not only acceptable to express differing opinions about significant issues, he said at the time, but it was also an important part of being an American. These types of student assemblies were known as y’mei iyun, or days of intense Torah study. According to historian Jeffrey S. Gurock ’67, “No other yeshiva so totally integrated the present-day scene with the teaching of American values and Jewish traditions.”

In 1978 the school organized an Anatoly Sharansky Day to bring attention to the plight of the refusenik who was accused of espionage and imprisoned in a Siberian labor camp after being denied an exit visa to Israel in 1973. The hallways were plastered with posters of other refuseniks. Former Prisoners of Zion—Jews imprisoned for their Zionist activities— spoke at the school. A special plea for Soviet Jews was added to the birkat hamazon. Permission slips for demonstrations were sent home to parents. Together with Rabbi Joshua Bakst, then headmaster of the Upper School, Rabbi Lookstein composed a “Prayer for Soviet Jews” in Hebrew and English that included a poignant reference to activism: “Strengthen

DR. NOAM SHUDOFSKY When Dr. Noam Shudofsky was hired in 1962, his job was to teach Tanach while he served as KJ’s youth director.

Five years later, he became the school’s first administrator, a job he held for the next thirty-five years. Dr. Shudofsky managed the school in every aspect, from fundraising to educational direction to ordering supplies. He nurtured Ramaz as it became known around the world for its high standards in academics, dedication to Torah, and menschlichkeit. A lifelong Zionist, Dr. Sudofsky held a deep commitment to Israel— the state and its people—and greatly influenced the curriculum, the activism, and the atmosphere. His presence is still felt. n Dr. Shudofsky was known as a sabra—his tough exterior, enabling his extraordinary talents in business and discipline, was matched with a soft interior, making him an empathetic listener. He was also dedicated to the arts and enjoyed singing and dancing in Parents Council revues. During the 1970s, he and his wife, Nechi, became leaders in the nascent Soviet Jewry movement, which soon became the cause of the school and the shul. n At a memorial service following his untimely passing at the age of seventy-one in 2005, Upper School students concluded a month of Talmud study that had been conducted in his honor. They noted that the standards Dr. Shudofsky set are the ones that make Ramaz the great place it is. Two endowments established in his name—the Dr. Noam Shudofsky Endowment for Israel Programs and Zionist Studies and the Dr. Noam Shudofsky Choral and Musical Enrichment Program—enable students to follow his trailblazing path.

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Rabbi Meir Moskowitz introduces Avital Sharansky, who came to Ramaz to speak with students in 1985.

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our resolve to stand in solidarity with them, to strive for their deliverance, and to struggle for their freedom.”

Rabbi Lookstein often asserts that one should never allow school to interfere with one’s education. He explains, “Some people may think that’s downgrading education, but I feel that it’s actually upgrading education.

Students can get more in an hour at an important demonstration than they can in three hours in class. The fact that our students wanted to do it was, in my mind, a tremendous triumph, because in the end that’s what the shul and the school are all about—raising a generation that really cares.”

Menschlichkeit at Ramaz is not only about character and behavior, but also about concern for the well-being of every Jew. Rabbi Lookstein notes that “our commitment to menschlichkeit is primary. This is in keeping with the statement in the midrash that ‘Derekh eretz kadmah l’Torah.’ Before Torah comes menschlichkeit.” He asserts, “One must be a mensch before one can be a tzaddik.”

At rallies and protests, Ramaz students maintain decorum. The school’s code of conduct dictates that students behave in a way that reflects the values and standards of the school. Rabbi Lookstein explains that menschlichkeit stands against the tide of groundless disputes that keep Jews separate instead of united, and against apathy when people are suffering.

There are other ways to express solidarity with those in distress. In the Lower School, students participate every year in chesed drives—collecting clothing, food, and surplus school supplies for those in need. They are strongly encouraged to choose at least one Chanukah gift to donate to children who receive none. Many Friday afternoon oneg skits relate to the theme of doing for others. Throughout both the Judaic and General Studies curricula, teachers emphasize the value of doing good for its own sake. Even the very youngest students in nursery learn about tzedakah and bring in coins to deposit into their classroom tzedakah box.

In the Middle School, students are ready to take on leadership roles in the realm of chesed. Tzedakah is collected every morning after tefillah, and a student-staffed Tzedakah Committee Board of Directors chooses recipients. Tzedakah is also raised at ice cream and bake sales, the annual Purim carnival, and the annual student-faculty basketball game. Under the leadership of Dr. Judy Sokolow, director of student educational programs and the Middle School’s Activities Department, each advisory group researches a charity and raises funds on its behalf; students recently developed pen-pal relationships

Menschlichkeit A famous story is told about Rabbi Israel Salanter, the founder of the nineteenth-century Musar (ethics) movement in Eastern Europe. As Pesach approached, careful, detailed preparations were underway to bake matzot according to the most stringent interpretations of the law. His students asked,“How can we be especially careful while doing this mitzvah?” He replied, “Make sure that you are respectful to the workers in the bakery.” The message of Rabbi Salanter was that adherence to ritual, in the absence of appropriate sensitivity and menschlichkeit, violated not only the spirit but also the letter of the law.

At Ramaz, we nurture the ethical and moral growth of our students by encouraging menschlichkeit: respect for others, communal involvement, integrity, and chesed. The rigor of our academic program

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with children in Zimbabwe and supported them by selling the “Zimkids” dolls handcrafted by their new friends across the globe. Members of the hockey team raise funds by having relatives and friends sponsor their goals. Middle School students also are involved in hands-on community projects—hosting activities for developmentally challenged students, performing for seniors at nursing homes, serving meals to the hungry elderly, and reaching out to homebound seniors and disadvantaged youngsters in the neighborhood. Students mark their bar and bat mitzvah celebrations with chesed projects such as helping to train service dogs and raising money to purchase vehicles for rescue organizations in Israel. In 2009 they raised money for a new playground in Sderot, Israel.

In how many schools is the chesed club the most popular extracurricular activity? Fifth-grade humanities teacher Victoria Ginsberg is at the helm of a club that guides students as they deepen their thinking about the importance of helping others. In 1987 she established a joint program between the school and City Harvest, an organization that distributes food to New York City food banks. For the next fourteen years, fifth- and sixth-

is matched by an equivalent attention to producing fine Jews who are as concerned about their relationship with their fellow human beings as they are about their relationship with God. This emphasis lies at the very core of our mission. It is perhaps best summed up by the commentary of Rabbi Reuven Bulka on a fascinating debate recorded in Babylonian Talmud Baba Batra 99a. Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Eliezer wondered how the kruvim, the cherubs on either side of the holy ark, were positioned. Did they face each other, as recounted in Exodus 25:20, or did they face away from one another and toward the Temple, as stated in 2 Chronicles 3:13? It turns out, the gemara tells us, that the position of the kruvim changed depending on the behavior of the people of Israel. As Rabbi Bulka explains in More Torah Therapy, Godly behavior can be gauged from the way human beings interact with one another. If human beings behave toward each other in a respectful manner, in true dialogue, looking each other in the eye, facing one another, and trying to understand each other, then one can be assured that God is present in such a mode of communication. However, if the human faces are turned away from each other, if they only care about themselves, and have turned their back on their fellows, then this is not merely a social slight. It is a theological blight. In a word, where there is menschlichkeit, true human empathy and sensitivity, there is Godliness.

Members of the Ramaz community face toward others, not away. Ritual is important, yes; but God is truly with us only when we treat others with dignity.

— Judith Fagin has been Head of School at Ramaz since 2005.

Natan Sharansky

“Until I touched his hand, I could not

“Do not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds” (Vayikra 19:16).

believe that he was really there. Even

No other Jewish figure so powerfully represents the commitment of Ramaz and its students to activism, involvement, and the mitzvah of “Do not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds” as does Natan Sharansky.

From 1977 until 1986, while he was incarcerated in Russia, he was the object of rallies, prayers, letters, and every conceivable form of activism on the part of Ramaz students.

it was true. Natan Sharansky was the

when I saw him, touched him, heard him, and logic told me that ‘yes, he is free,’ my emotions would not let me believe victim, the person we were fighting for.

Now, he is one of the fighters.”

— Jessica Cohen ’89

Natan Sharansky established his first link with Ramaz when Audrey and I met him in September 1975, on the night of Shemini Atzeret, in Moscow at the home of Vladimir Anatoly Sharansky speaks at KJ after his release in 1986.

Slepak. A lifelong friendship began that night that continues even up to today. Eighteen months later, Dr. Noam Shudofsky and his son, Binyamin ’75, were among the last American Jews to visit with him prior to his incarceration in the Gulag in March 1977.

Throughout his imprisonment, Ramaz students actively worked for Sharansky’s release and supported his wife, Avital, who traveled the world on her husband’s behalf. They held a daily public shacharit minyan for three months in the fall of 1985 on Lexington Avenue and East Sixty-Seventh Street in solidarity with his plight and in support of his hunger strike. At the first such service, seventy-five were arrested with me and Dr. Shudofsky on East Sixty-Seventh Street across from the Soviet mission to the United Nations.

They also wrote letters and attended Solidarity Sundays and other specific rallies in his behalf.

When Sharansky was released in February 1986 and came to the United States two months later for one of the biggest Solidarity Sundays ever, dozens of Ramaz students boarded buses at 5 a.m. to greet him at JFK Airport. During his short visit in the United States, he came to the main synagogue of KJ, where the entire student body assembled to greet him. He occupied the chair that had been set aside for him on the bimah of KJ every Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in the hope he would someday be able to sit in it. That day, he did—to the thunderous applause of over one thousand Ramaz students.

Today, Sharansky is chairman of the Jewish Agency. He has served as a minister in two Israeli governments and resigned from both on principle. He is a hero in our eyes not only because he behaved heroically in the Gulag but also because he is unique in being prepared to give up the power and the amenities of a government minister in order to defend a principle in which he fervently believes.

In the annals of the history of our school, he remains the symbol of our commitment to stand up for any Jew who is oppressed or in danger.

His life story is the embodiment of Ramaz’s commitment to the ideal that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers.

— Haskel Lookstein

Anatoly Sharansky celebrates his freedom with Binyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, and Rabbi Haskel Lookstein after his release in 1986.

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grade students packed food items for the city’s hungry residents. In 1986 a fifth-grade class discussion yielded this question from a student: How do homeless people keep their feet warm in winter? The class explored ideas about what individuals can and should do to help the homeless, and that first year they collected more than one thousand pairs of shoes, which were repaired, polished, and distributed to organizations in the five boroughs. The shoe drive was the springboard for other chesed projects, including a winter clothing drive.

In the Upper School, DeeDee Benel, educational director of student programs, organizes and leads studentdeveloped chesed projects in New York City and around the world. Ramaz students have helped restore a Jewish cemetery in Belarus, cleaned a flooded synagogue in New Orleans, and distributed blankets and food to the homeless in Manhattan. When in Israel, students volunteer at soup kitchens and senior citizen centers and with the developmentally disabled. This commitment, says Ms. Benel, is “consciousness-raising in an iPod world.”

Chesed projects alter how students think about those in need, she adds, referring to a program in which twelfthgrade students meet homeless New Yorkers at night and build cardboard shelters for them. “Take a kid, put him on a street when it’s about eighteen degrees to build a cardboard box and stand up to the smell of someone who hasn’t had a bath in who knows how long. Activism at Ramaz is taking them and putting them into situations where they have to interact.”

In 2005 Ms. Benel organized a two-day trip to rural Tennessee where Ramaz students shared stories with the eighth-graders who had collected 11 million paper clips to represent the 11 million murdered during the Holocaust, as documented in the award-winning film Paper Clips, produced by a Ramaz alumnus. In 2008, 2009, and 2011, students traveled to York, Pennsylvania, to assist with a Habitat for Humanity project to repair a family home.

In 2008, on Yom Hashoah, students were riveted by the presentation of Dina Babbit, a Holocaust survivor whose paintings of gypsies while at Auschwitz were created at the command of the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele. Students learned of her efforts to retrieve seven of her original works from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and State Museum, and they undertook a letter-writing campaign on her behalf.

In the tenth grade, chesed is a formal part of the curriculum, with sophomores required to perform forty hours

“Here I am.” —Penetrating the Iron Curtain When I was a Ramaz high school student, the school focused attention on the plight of millions of Jews trapped behind the Iron Curtain of Soviet repression, stifled in their attempts to emigrate and freely practice the religion of our ancestors.

To this day, I vividly recall a poster hanging in Dr. David Bernstein’s classroom that quoted Edmund Burke: “All it takes for the forces of evil to prevail is for enough good men to do nothing.” Dr. Bernstein and other passionate activists on the faculty nurtured a climate of concern for Jews a world apart— geographically as well as socioeconomically— from our comfortable Upper East Side milieu.

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Eighth-grade students involved in Project Kehillah, the Middle School chesed program, visit neighborhood children.

In those heady days, Ramaz was a kiln of activism. We felt a sense of urgency and a commitment to act on behalf of Jews in trouble that yielded one grassroots initiative after another. Ramaz students coordinated rallies like the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry’s annual Solidarity Sunday, letter-writing campaigns to elected officials and the media, prayer vigils outside the Soviet mission to the United Nations, lobbying of politicians, protest demonstrations outside performances by visiting Soviet dance and music troupes, and public education drives. Students publicized counts of the incarceration days remaining on prison sentences of particular refuseniks. Encouraged to think and act for the sake of others, many Ramaz students went on to become even more activist during their college years as members of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry.

In the fall of 1982, my classmate, Joshua Rochlin, was instrumental in establishing the daily student protest minyan outside the Soviet mission to the United Nations, ten blocks south of the Ramaz Upper School. He, along with other Ramaz students, myself included, kept the minyan going even after the temperatures dropped and winter swept in. When Jews were languishing behind the Iron Curtain, and the clarion call was sounded, the Ramaz student body collectively responded, “Here I am; send me.”

— Leonard Silverman ’84 is Executive Director of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun.

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Through Victoria Ginsberg’s Middle School chesed program, Ramaz donates shoes, clothing, and food to needy people throughout New York City.

Gilad Shalit Ramaz never forgot. For over five years—1,934 days—Ramaz never forgot.

Kidnapped in June 2006 at age nineteen in a cross-border raid by Hamas, and held incommunicado by his captors in Gaza, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit became a symbol of yearning for peace in Israel. When he was released from captivity on October 18, 2011, chol hamoed Sukkot, celebration was bittersweet; a member of the family had come home, but at a very high price—the exchange of over a thousand prisoners, many of them terrorists. Nevertheless, said Rabbi Lookstein to the students, families, and teachers who assembled after the final day of Sukkot,“this is one of the great moments of my life, and of yours.You and I never forgot him.”

Ramaz students knew that their actions would not bring about Shalit’s release, but they also knew they could not in good conscience “stand idly by.” Posters in the lobbies of all divisions of the school raised awareness of Shalit’s plight. Students wrote letters and made phone calls to the White House. They acknowledged Shalit on Yom HaZikaron. They attended rallies. They raised money to help his parents’ efforts. When they were in Jerusalem, they visited the Gilad Shalit protest tent, erected in 2010 outside Binyamin Netanyahu’s residence by Shalit’s parents to put pressure on the Prime Minister. And every Wednesday morning for five years, whenever school was in session, a shacharit minyan of Ramaz students

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met in sight of the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran on Third Avenue and Fortieth Street to protest Iran’s involvement in the kidnapping and illegal holding of Shalit. In 2009, Noam Shalit visited Ramaz and spoke briefly during the Middle School Zimriah. For many students, being in the presence of someone so close to the situation was emotionally overwhelming. They told him that they thought about his son every day and felt as if they knew him.

Rabbi Lookstein observed that when it comes to the Jewish value of honoring life, politics are beside the point. For 1,934 days the community came together for the sake of one of their own. Together Ramaz students recited the “ha-tov v’ha-meitiv” blessing said upon hearing good news: “Blessed are You, O’ God, King of the universe, who is good and who does good.”

Learning From My Chesed Project Born with a congenital heart defect, later corrected by open-heart surgery, I was speechand growth-delayed for years and went through difficult periods of socialization. My difficulties enabled me to empathize with two neighborhood friends diagnosed with autism. I felt drawn to these neighbors, developed friendships with them, and soon realized I had patience to spend time with them. I derived satisfaction in watching their improvements.

So when it came time to fulfill the twenty chesed hours required each semester in the Upper School, I knew I wanted to help people with autism, a disease that affects 7,500 Jewish children in the New York area. My twenty hours actually became hundreds of enjoyable hours, inspiring me to tell others about my experiences, teaching them about autism.

In the eleventh grade, I arranged for a guest speaker to address the Ramaz Upper School about autism and the difficulties of living with a special-needs child. The speech was particularly meaningful because not only was the speaker my shul rabbi but he was also the father of one of my autistic friends.

His inspiring words were followed by a mishloach manot—Purim gift basket—fund-raiser to collect money for the Seaver Autism Research Center at Mount Sinai Hospital. We presented a check for over $2,500 to Dr. Joseph Buxbaum, the head of the research department, who then gave us a personal tour of the facility. The center recently identified genetic abnormalities that can make people susceptible to autism; the same genes associated with intellectual disabilities, the center discovered, can also be implicated in autism.

At the closing school assembly, I was surprised to be presented with the Alan Helmreich Community Service Award for my efforts and was acknowledged

by Ramaz for my chesed work.

In retrospect I was supposed to be helping my friends, but, in the end, they helped me become a better person. And the work goes on.

— David Bernheim ’12 is a senior at Ramaz.

What Big Hearts Can Do—Activism at Ramaz The Ramaz students eyed the York, Pennsylvania, house warily at first, as unsure of the rough neighborhood as they were of the task ahead of them. But their mission was clear—to help gut and then rehabilitate a dilapidated home so that a family chosen by Habitat for Humanity could assume it as their own.

Putting reservations aside while picking up work gloves, masks, and crowbars, they took to their task with enthusiasm and energy.

In Whitwell, Tennessee, Ramaz students arrived at a rural high school to visit with students who had accomplished something remarkable—they had collected 11 million paper clips to represent the 6 million Jews, as well as 5 million other victims, who had perished during the Holocaust.

Manhattan is a long way from Whitwell, in every sense of the word, but the experience found the northern Jews and southern Christians on common ground.

Indeed, every year, in places near and remote, Ramaz students venture on school-sponsored trips into situations that take them well out of their comfort zones. They have visited New Orleans for post-Katrina relief work and worked in soup kitchens, food warehouses, and centers for developmentally challenged youths.

From Washington, D.C., (where they marched to raise awareness for suffering in Darfur), to Belarus (where they restored a Jewish cemetery), to Argentina (where they brought ritual objects to a Thanksgiving mission), Ramaz students express their commitment to humanitarianism and tikkun olam (repairing the world).

DeeDee Benel, educational director of student programs and the coordinator of many of these trips, says, “If our graduates integrate the words of Isaiah—‘Here I am; send me’—into their daily lives, then we have succeeded.” The contribution students make is perhaps best expressed by a York Habitat for Humanity supervisor, himself the beneficiary of a Habitat home, who choked back tears while telling the Ramaz students, “It’s amazing what a big heart will do compared with a dollar bill.”

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of volunteer work. They volunteer in nursing homes, senior citizen centers, hospitals, orphanages, and shut-in programs, and also harvest produce at farms to deliver to soup kitchens.

“The chesed work done by Ramaz students is an integral part of our curriculum and mission,” says Ms. Ginsberg.

“This is who we are as a school.”

Students prepare delicious and nutritious meals for a local food kitchen in the mid-1990s.

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E P I L O G U E

The Next Seventy-Five and Beyond

Even the best things can be improved. Ramaz continues to evaluate itself, reflect, and embrace innovation. Ramaz is always moving, always growing stronger, always looking ahead. May the next seventy-five years bring us continuous growth.

Ramaz is looking not only backward at its seventy-five-year history but also inward and forward. It would be easy merely to offer the same excellent education for which the school has long been well-known. But that would not be the right approach. The Torah, it is said, has seventy “faces” or facets of interpretation; the way to discover them all is to turn the Torah over again and again. A scholar may study the Torah every day, but there will always be a new perspective to uncover.

The more Torah she learns, the more she grows as a human being.

Likewise, learners and teachers are multi-faceted. There is no single method suitable for everyone; a strategy that works well today may be ineffective tomorrow; and alternate pedagogies may draw out as-yet-unknown skills and talents. When Judith Fagin became Head of School in 2005, she decided that, exceptional as it was, Ramaz had to turn itself over and over again. The school had to evaluate itself, to reflect. Ramaz had to embrace innovation—not for the sake of being experimental but to better realize its mission. The more Ramaz learns about itself, the more it grows as an institution and community.

Implementation of a strategic plan—a road map with specific strategies to improve the school—is the core of this learning process. The plan was created in 2009 after consultation with 800 faculty, parents, alumni, students, and board members. “Creating the plan was exciting,” says Middle School history teacher Jennifer Bernstein. “We have a long history but we need to move forward and position ourselves for the future.”

This learning process requires transparency: everyone in the community deserves to be familiar with the school’s structure and organization. Recently, Ramaz instituted regular Town Hall meetings to keep the community involved in every aspect of school life.

In fiscal matters, transparency means responsible decision-making; indeed, over the last two years alone, Ramaz has reduced expenses by $2 million and maintained tuition increases at modest levels. The business and development offices have been restructured as a result of a grant from the Partnership for

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Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE). The roles of the Director of Institutional Advancement and Director of Finance and Operations have been separated, and there is now a Facilities Manager. In practical terms, these changes mean that the administrative side is streamlined, allowing the educational side to function more efficiently.

More than ever before, Ramaz honors the individualized characters of its students. Lower School students learn socializing strategies through the B.R.A.V.E. (Belief in the Rights and Value of Everyone) Program. The Middle School Sephardic Club provides programs about Sephardic ritual practice. The spring semester of twelfth grade has been revitalized with a diverse range of mini-courses (covering everything from the Akedah to Zombies), chesed opportunities, work-study assignments, and other options, including travel to Poland and an interdisciplinary senior thesis. Through an expanded science research program, Upper School students are working on sophisticated lab research projects and writing up their results in academic papers.

Ramaz also now recognizes individual differences in approaches to spirituality. In the Middle School, yoatzim (religious counselors) meet with students to discuss religious topics. In the Upper School, the new Talmud Bekiut program offers students the chance to complete an entire tractate over the course of the year through weekly lunchtime meetings. And the Kollel Fellows program brings young men and women from Yeshiva University and Stern College to serve as role models and learning resources.

Today’s students learn in an era of enormous electronic and educational transformation. They grapple with the same material that previous generations mastered, but through twenty-first century lenses. Faculty members continually sharpen their skills to provide the best teaching methods. Teachers now participate in curriculummapping, a cutting-edge educational practice. Every teacher documents the skills and content taught in the classroom and shares this information with all the other teachers in all disciplines, enabling any teacher to track skills and update lesson plans. “This is revolutionary for the Jewish day school movement,” notes Rabbi Shlomo Stochel, Assistant Dean of the Upper School. “Through curricular mapping, we are upgrading our standards and we will be able to serve as an exemplar to other schools.”

These innovations are a resounding success. The New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS) recently gave Ramaz an overwhelmingly positive review, commenting favorably on ongoing improvements. Moreover, “there is an explosion in admissions,” according to Shira Baruch, Admissions Coordinator for the ECC and Lower School, with close to 100 percent of accepted students matriculating.

Of course, even as Ramaz embraces change, some things will always remain the same. Ramaz continues to view financial aid as an obligation to families who need tuition assistance. It continues to model and nurture menschlichkeit. The school continues to support and attract outstanding faculty members. Ramaz continues to express a love of Israel, Torah, and peoplehood. And it continues to foster a sense of communal responsibility.

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Editor…………………....Leora Tanenbaum ’87 Editorial Board Chair……....Esther Kremer ’91 Editorial Board

Rabbi Joshua S. Bakst Caryl Englander Judith H. Fagin Jeffrey S. Gurock ’67 Edith Lazaros Honig Esther Kremer ’91 Mara Lassner Seth Lipsky Rabbi Haskel Lookstein ’49 Judi Resnick Kenneth Rochlin ’86 Leora Tanenbaum ’87

Special Thanks

Ramaz expresses a special thank you to Dr. Jeffrey Gurock for bringing to this book his deep understanding of Jewish education in New York in general and his detailed knowledge of Ramaz in particular.

The Ramaz School would also like to thank Rachel Rabhan for the generous use of her photographs that appear in this book.

Copyright © 2012 by the Ramaz School

114 East 85th Street New York City, New York 10028 212.774.8055 www.ramaz.org All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the Ramaz School, New York City, New York.

Book Development by Bookhouse Group, Inc. Atlanta, Georgia www.bookhouse.net

Remember When…

If you see yourself or a familiar face in any of the photos in this book of memories and history, please share your recollections by emailing 75Years@ramaz.org. We regret that we could not publish many more of the wonderful photos and stories of the past seventy-five years.

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