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RISING STAR RELIGIOUS HIGH SCHOOL

A World View, Informed by Judaism
Forty-year-old day school in Riverdale adds grades 9 through 12 to the fold

At the SAR High School in Riverdale, the secular meets the sacred in everything from academics to social activities.

The high school opened five years ago as an offshoot of the SAR Academy, a 40-year-old elementary school program. Now with 340 students at the high school level, administrators watched their first senior class graduate last spring.

Rabbi Tully Harcsztark has been the principal since the school’s start, following a stint as one of the academy’s principals for eight years.

“We always talk about how we want a grand conversation between the Torah and the world,” Harcsztark said. “Colloquially, grand conversation assumes that from the religious perspective, Judaism should have a deep-rooted foundation in the usage of texts and practices that inform how we see the world.”

SAR High School has a broad and open curriculum. Classes discuss contemporary, hot-button issues like organ donation or stem cell research, examining them from both a secular and a Jewish perspective.

Teachers will also use Biblical texts to help analyze novels, finding parallels between “A Separate Peace,” by John Knowles, and the Book of Job, for example.

“I like their approach to their academic program because they try to weave the different disciplines together. It’s never just straight math, but it also involves writing papers and applying math to everyday situations,” said Daphne Eidman, a PTA member and mother of two, including 10th-grader Jonah.

The Beit Midrash Fellows Program is another unusual feature at SAR High School. The program brings in male and female college graduates from the United States and Israel to study Judaism with small groups of students.

“It’s important to interact with older role models that are not teachers,” Harcsztark said. “And it’s also important to interact with Israelis.”

Indeed, the school’s first graduating class last year found many students opting to spend time in Israel before continuing higher education.

SAR also includes an advisory program, in which students are randomly placed in groups that meet twice a week with an adult faculty member. The goal is to have different groups of students interact with each other and discuss social anxieties and other issues.

“You don’t want to have an underground student life, so we’re trying to be able to make it much more organic,” Harcsztark said. “It allows you to talk about things that are more vital, and it informs the general feel of the school, which is really positive.”

Community-building efforts have paid off. Harcsztark recalled a time when a group of students constructed a catapult for “Punkin Chunkin,” a competition to propel pumpkins the farthest using hand-built launching devices. After months of work, the students left for the competition in Delaware with 300 of their classmates cheering them on. They SAR team won third place.

“He is extremely happy—socially and academically,” Eidman said of her son, Jonah. “We love the warmth and support we get from the school.”

SAR High School has also developed partnerships with Mount Sinai Hospital and the Columbia University Medical Center, among other local institutions, to allow students to visit different laboratories.

“We live on a very rich land, and we’re lucky to be able to use the city in the way that we do,” Harcsztark said.

There are still a few challenges for the relatively new school. One involves the feeder program from the elementary school, which doesn’t separate children by academic ability. Harcsztark said that at the high school level, it is especially important to recognize each individual’s needs, from star students to struggling learners.

“It’s been hard to have them all in the same class, so one of the things we’ve always wrestled with is how to group kids and help teachers shift their methods of instruction,” Harcsztark said.

Throughout it all, SAR strives to find a balance between the sacred and the secular. This can be difficult, especially during college-decision times, when students have to decide how their Jewish identity will factor into their choices. “We want students who are citizens of the world,” Harcsztark said, “but who are also loyal to their Jewish roots and heritage.”

— Sadia Latifi