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2009: Rising Star Religious High School

University Lab School
‘Jewish wisdom’ meets liberal arts and science education

For Rena Schulman, the draw of Yeshiva University High School for Boys, the Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy, could be summed up in its name.

Although she and her two sons looked at many yeshivas in their home state of New Jersey, only Yeshiva University High School for Boys offered students a chance to work directly with a university.

“One of the main draws was none of the other high schools in our area had a relationship with a university where your child can take courses on a college level,” Schulman said. “This is beyond AP. It’s sitting in on a college class.”

Head of School Rabbi Mark Gottlieb agrees that the high school’s role as Yeshiva University’s lab school makes it much easier for students to access a variety of opportunities.

“We’re able to leverage the facilities—the labs, the libraries, the athletic facilities—as well as the human capital—the professors, the rabbis, the researchers—from the university to work with our boys,” Gottlieb said.

Seniors can also participate in a competitive fellows program that pairs them up with Yeshiva University professors for an independent research project.

“They’ve worked on translating ancient Jewish manuscripts. They’ve done work in game theory. They’ve done work in political thought, in economics, in ethics,” Gottlieb said. “It’s a great opportunity for a kid to explore a passion of theirs intellectually.”

Yeshiva University High School for Boys was founded in 1916 and moved from its original Lower East Side location to the current Washington Heights building in 1927. The building’s architecture evokes the Golden Age of Spain and reflects the unity of Jewish wisdom with a liberal arts and science education.

“It’s meant to convey the mission of the school, which is to promote Jewish wisdom and learning in engagement and conversation with the great traditions of liberal learning of the West and the world,” said Gottlieb, who is also an alum of the school.

While many of the boys arrive with some knowledge of the Talmud, the high school helps them become experts. All 300 students start their 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. school day by studying the Talmud and Jewish law.

“It’s a very close reading of texts, a very analytic and conceptual analysis,” Gottlieb said.

Students spend the afternoon taking traditional college preparatory courses, such as humanities, math, science and history classes. The school also has a foreign language requirement in addition to Hebrew, which allows students to study French, Spanish, Latin or Yiddish.

As the school continues to grow, Gottlieb hopes to further bridge the distance between students’ religious and secular studies.

“The concept is to create an intellectual space where boys not only learn about individual disciplines, but also about the conversation between their Jewish texts and traditions and the humanities and sciences in a much more interdisciplinary and direct way,” Gottlieb said.

Gottlieb also constantly updates parents on school plans, and the admissions department sends out a weekly e-newsletter, which Gottlieb supplements with emails.

“I’ve done more emails not just introducing new policies, but occasional reflections on school life and what’s going on with students and what’s in the air culturally in the school,” he said.

Schulman says that is another reason why she and her sons are so happy with Yeshiva University High School for Boys.

“Anytime we’ve needed to address anything, the school has responded appropriately and we’ve just been very satisfied not only with how our children are learning, but how they’re being cared for.”

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Yeshiva University High School for Boys, the Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy
2540 Amsterdam Ave.
New York, N.Y. 10033
212-960-5337
www.yuhsb.org
Rabbi Mark Gottlieb, Head of School
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— Patty Lee