For Dr. Ira Haimowitz, the Jersey Shore Jewish Academy in Howell has been more than just a passing footnote in his family’s history.
Since Haimowitz’s oldest daughter enrolled at the school, formerly known as the Solomon Schechter Academy of Ocean and Monmouth Counties, in 1995, three of his children have passed through the school and his youngest two are currently enrolled, in 1st and 7th grades, respectively.
Founded in 1970, the Jersey Shore Jewish Academy, a major recipient of funds from the Jewish Federation of Ocean County, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.
Calling the school-federation partnership “a wonderful symbiotic relationship,” Haimowitz said that the school “encourages all of our parents to become active with their federations.”
“The federation has been very generous to us over the years,” Haimowitz, who serves as the vice president of the board, said. “They have helped us significantly during times of financial stress.”
A preschool through 8th grade day school, the Jersey Shore Jewish Academy offers an integrated Judaic studies and secular studies curriculum for children throughout central and southern New Jersey.
“We aim to provide a Jewish school in this area that offers excellent secular education, teaches love for Israel, teaches Hebrew as a living language, and accepts every Jewish child,” Principal Rivka Budelman told The Jewish Journal.
Rather than relegating the morning exclusively for Jewish studies and the afternoon for other subjects, Budelman pointed to the school’s integration of Judaic and general subject matters as one of its strengths.
“We don’t want to make it so that the students think they’re Jews in the a.m. and Americans in the afternoon,” she said. “We want them to be good American Jewish citizens. That was the idea of the school and that hasn’t changed.”
This integration manifests itself with the interspersion of Judaic and general studies classes throughout the day as well as combining the subjects when possible in a single class such as in music, when the students learn about Jewish music, music theory, and American composers.
For the last two years, JSJA has participated in a unique environmental learning project which integrates environmental sciences, Judaism, hands-on learning, and a live connection to their counterparts in Israel. Through the federation’s Partnership 2000 program JSJA has been linked to an elementary school in Arad and together students from both schools explore the ecological impact of their lifestyles. Through this federation funded activity, students not only learn, but have also improved the school’s awareness of the importance of conserving electricity and other natural resources.
In social studies, too, Jewish history is taught within the larger context of world history, a subject matter, Budelman said, that “lends itself beautifully to integration.”
The school also offers a Mechina program for students entering the 3rd and 4th grades who have not previously attended a Jewish day school or have had minimal Jewish education and need extra help catching up to the other students on that front.
Students are also taught the importance of reaching out to the larger community, Budelman said.
In the 8th grade, for the last few years, students have taken a 10-day trip to Israel for which the federation has provided additional funding as well as special scholarship money to enable everyone to participate regardless of their family’s financial means. Students also participate in weekly community service at the nearby Head Start program. The school is also active with the area’s larger Jewish community with occasional visits to nearby nursing homes.
Asked why he decided to send his five children to the school, Haimowitz said it was primarily the school’s strong academics and the preparation it provided his children for high school.
“For me, the educational experience is still the No. 1 thing,” he said, adding “They all came out far ahead of their peers who came out of public schools or other private schools,” he added.
The school’s emphasis on Jewish learning and living was also important for him.
“On a Jewish level, they are not only knowledgeable of their culture, religion their language — they came out fluent in Hebrew — they came out as leaders and as mentsches,” Haimowitz said, noting that his three children who went through the school served as president of the local United Synagogue Youth chapter and his oldest daughter, a undergraduate at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., sits on the board of her school’s Hillel.
The school has not gone without challenges, however, as the area’s demographics have changed with the influx of Orthodox Jews affiliated with the Beth Medrash Govoha yeshiva. With the school’s name change this year, the Jersey Shore Jewish Academy seeks to attract families from across the religious spectrum.
“We wanted to convey that we believe that every Jewish child deserves a good Jewish education,” Budelman said, adding that to school would be a place for all Jewish families no matter what the adjective — Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox — they place next to their names.
“We hope to be able to draw Jews from all of the denominations and continue to provide the quality of education we always have,” Haimowitz said.