Hebrew University High School

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School logo

Leyada, viewed from the north

The Hebrew University High School (Hebrew: התיכון שליד האוניברסיטה), commonly known as Leyada, is a six-year, secular, "experimental", academically-autonomous, semi-private secondary school. It is located next to the Hebrew University Givat-Ram campus in Jerusalem. Along with the Haifa Hebrew Reali School, it is considered one of the best high schools in Israel. Founded in 1935 as "Beit-Hakerem High School", it soon established a unique methodology and syllabus, carefully screening applicants through psychotechnical entrance exams.

The school is one of the few in Israel to employ a five-day week (Sunday through Thursday), keeping facilities open on Fridays for self-study. In addition to the 25+ classrooms, facilities include two 200 seat lecture halls, fully-equipped physics and chemistry laboratories, a library, a chamber-music auditorium, a 600-seat theatre, and a regulation-size basketball court.

Over the years, the school has carried out several integration projects in response to accusations of social elitism. However, due to its semi-private status, Leyada's students still majorly come from middle- and upper-class families.

The current principal is Dr. Gilad Amir (class of 1970), who joined faculty in 1977 as a math teacher, and took the top position in 2003 from 35-year veteran Hannah Levita. Among the school's board of directors is Labor-Meimad party's Orna Angel, a 1980 Leyada graduate and currently a CEO of two major corporations.

[edit] Notable alumni

Yitzhak Navon (class of 1939) - fifth President of Israel
Daniel Kahneman (1951) - awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics
Aharon Barak (1954) - professor of law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, lecturer in law at the Yale Law School, President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 1995 to 2006
Yehoram Gaon (1956) - singer and actor
David Gross (1959) - awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics
Tom Segev (1963) - journalist, and historian
Meir Shalev (1966) - writer
Yohai Ben-Nun (1942) - sixth commander of the Israeli Sea Corps
David Grossman (1972) - author of fiction, nonfiction, and youth and children's literature