THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 15, 1996 TAG: 9609150038
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 165 lines
Like many Jewish children, the dozen second-graders in Rychel Margolin's class talked last week about preparations for Rosh Hashanah, which ends at sundown today.
But unlike most of their counterparts, these youngsters understood Hebrew questions about the holiday - and knew many of the Hebrew translations for the answers.
Margolin: Mi yodayah mah ochlim bih-Rosh Hashanah? (Who knows what we eat on Rosh Hashanah?)
Student: Honey.
Margolin: Mah zeh honey bih-ivrit? (What is ``honey'' in Hebrew?)
Student: Dvash.
Margolin: Mitzuyan. (Very good.) Mah samim ba-dvash? (What do we put in the honey?)
Student: Tapuach. (An apple.)
Margolin: Mitzuyan.
Those types of classroom conversations, heavy on the Hebrew, are not unusual at the Hebrew Academy of Tidewater, where Margolin teaches.
Surrounded by dozens of Christian schools in Hampton Roads and
less than a mile from the Christian Broadcasting Network headquarters, Hebrew Academy stands as the only full-time Jewish private school in the region.
Like the Christian schools, Hebrew Academy boasts a solid mix of secular and religious studies - and a rising enrollment.
The 41-year-old school, which goes from preschool to eighth grade, has a record 235 students this fall, up 7 percent from last year's 220. It has added two portable classrooms this year to handle the surplus.
About half the students are from Virginia Beach, said Laurence Kutler, the principal, about 40 percent from Norfolk and the rest from other cities in South Hampton Roads and the Peninsula.
If many Christian parents send their children to religious schools to avoid the perils of immorality and lax discipline that they see in public schools, Jewish parents choose Hebrew Academy to escape what they believe is a threat no less insidious - assimilation and the disappearance of Jewish identification.
``The schools around the area are wonderful schools, but none of them can offer the Jewish side that Hebrew Academy can,'' said Abbey Horwitz of Virginia Beach, who is sending two children there. ``Growing up in Tidewater, where else can you instill the values you believe in?''
Shmuel Itzhak, an Israeli native who teaches Hebrew at the school, put it like this: ``If you want to build a house, you start with the foundation. Jewish education is the foundation of their life. If they don't have that foundation, I don't think they can keep their identity as Jews.''
Abigail Rotfus and Yonatan Warren have that foundation.
Both of the eighth-graders were scheduled to chant from the Torah at their synagogues this weekend during Rosh Hashanah services - Abigail at Congregation Beth El in Norfolk, Yonatan at Rodef Sholom in Hampton.
It is a task most adult Jews have not mastered. Not only do Torah readers have to know how to read Hebrew letters, they have to memorize the musical notes - and the vowels - for each Hebrew word because neither appears in the Torah scroll.
Abigail, who lives in Virginia Beach, acknowledged that she hadn't learned how to chant from the Torah at Hebrew Academy. But her command of the Hebrew language - she says she can carry on a conversation in simple sentences - comes straight from school. ``If I didn't know Hebrew so well, it would have been a lot harder to learn'' Torah, she said.
Yonatan, who lives in Hampton, said of his schooling: ``When I grow up, it's going to help me so I know where I come from and what is my past. I'm not going to become a Zen Buddhist or something like that.
``I will be able to teach this to my kids and we can create a link to the Torah throughout the generations.''
What makes Hebrew Academy unusual among Jewish private schools, supporters say, is that it isn't affiliated with one of the branches of Judaism - Reform, Conservative or Orthodox.
``One of the best things about the school is that it's for Jews of every denomination,'' said Mark Goldstein, executive vice president of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. ``It's not only for those who follow every Jewish law or keep kosher. There are families who have kids in the school where one parent is not Jewish; there are families who have kids in the school where both parents are rabbis.''
That, he said, has helped unify the local Jewish community at a time when Jews in other cities have been plagued by internal feuding.
``I believe every synagogue in town has congregants in that school, which means every rabbi in town has a vested interest in the school,'' said Goldstein, who sends his two children - Carlyn, 9, and Ezra, 3 - there. ``I can tell you that's not the case elsewhere.''
To maintain harmony between Jews of varying degrees of religious observance, the school shoots for ``the highest common denominator,'' said Kutler, the principal.
For instance, boys are required to wear yarmulkes throughout the day. And non-kosher food cannot be brought in for lunch. That means no ham sandwiches. Not even non-kosher turkey sandwiches. However, unlike classes at most Orthodox schools, the ones at Hebrew Academy are coed.
Every class says morning prayers in Hebrew for about 10 minutes each day, Kutler said. Before lunch, the students say blessings such as the motzi over the eating of bread. When they're done, they chant the grace.
In addition, Kutler said, the school devotes about 2 1/4 hours a day to Jewish subjects - one hour for the study of Hebrew; an hour and a quarter for Jewish holidays, the Torah, Jewish history, Zionism. Kutler said teachers are trying to teach more of that section in Hebrew, too, to promote ``Hebrew immersion.''
``That's a language we have had for our people for over 2,000 years,'' said Kutler, who came to Hampton Roads this summer from Youngstown, Ohio. ``Now we have a whole country where people speak Hebrew. . . . The language of the siddur, or prayer, is written in Hebrew; we should be familiar with what we are saying.''
Ohd shalosh dakot.'' Three more minutes for the assignment, Caren Kutler warned her third-graders last week.
Papers streamed in, on which each of the students had written five simple sentences in Hebrew. Some examples: Tapuach al ha-shulchan. (An apple is on the table.) Ha-yehladim ochlim. (The children are eating.)
Next came an exercise to practice which of two Hebrew verbs to place in 16 sentences. And then the students recited Hebrew prayers such as the Shema, the Jewish affirmation of faith in God, and Adom Olam (Lord of the Universe), with little need for guidance from Kutler, who is the principal's wife.
In Margolin's class next door, after the students discussed the foods customarily eaten on the holiday, she asked, ``Mi rotzeh litkoah bashofar ha-yom?'' (Who wants to blow the shofar today?)
Jacob Slone went to the front of the class and took the ram's horn, which is repeatedly sounded on Rosh Hashanah. He blew the various notes and ended with a hearty version of the tekiah gedolah, the longest of them.
The school also offers standard secular subjects such as U.S. history, math and reading. It even started a band this school year. The balance between the religious and secular worlds was reflected in the hallway outside Margolin's and Kutler's classes: On one wall hung drawings of Stars of David filled with images such as Torah scrolls and menorahs. On the other, drawings of ghosts, with creepy ``g'' words - goose bumps, graveyard - written inside them.
``The child is equipped with twin cultures to view the world, which we think is a fantastic window in America,'' Laurence Kutler said.
To squeeze everything in, Hebrew Academy has a long school day: It runs from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., about an hour more than most public schools. Plus, Kutler said, the 15-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio allows teachers to accelerate through some subjects.
Kutler said he'd like to see enrollment swell to 500 and maybe add a high school one day. But that might take a while.
Goldstein, the Jewish federation executive, noted that the relatively young school has to compete with much older private schools with well-entrenched alumni networks and reputations.
Tuition is a factor, too. Hebrew Academy is substantially more expensive than other local religious schools.
A year of middle school at Hebrew Academy costs about $7,500. In comparison, Norfolk Christian School charges $4,730 a year for middle school. Catholic High School has no middle school, but its ninth grade costs $4,125 for Catholics and $5,125 for non-Catholics.
Thirty-one percent of Hebrew Academy's students receive financial aid, Kutler said.
Goldstein offered a few reasons for the price differential: Because Hebrew Academy is relatively young, it hasn't had a chance to build up a huge base of donors. Plus, unlike Christian schools, which often get subsidies from individual churches, Jewish schools get money from the federation, but not from synagogues.
``I think the Jewish community has placed a value on education,'' he said. ``We run the risk, though, as costs rise, that tuition is going to price it only to a certain segment of the community. We don't want that.''
Kutler has also heard the arguments that schools like Hebrew Academy don't reflect the real world into which their graduates will emerge. He doesn't buy that.
``The world has non-Jews in it - what a surprise,'' he said. ``When our kids go to high school and go out to the secular world, it takes them 11 minutes to find it out. Because they have strong identities, they can confront the world as it is.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The Virginian-Pilot
In Caren Kutler's third-grade class, from left, Daniella Plaugh,
David Horwitz and Shaine Horwitz chant prayers. by CNB