Torah Academy of Bergen County
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| Established | 1982 |
|---|---|
| Type | Private High School, all-male Yeshiva |
| Affiliation | Modern Orthodox Judaism |
| Students | 263 |
| Grades | 9–12 |
| Location | Teaneck, NJ, United States |
| Accreditation | Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools |
| Colors | Navy Blue and Gold |
| Mascot | Storm the Dog, RIP |
| Newspaper | The Spirit |
| Website | www.tabc.org |
Torah Academy of Bergen County is a four-year yeshiva high school located in Teaneck, in Bergen County, New Jersey. It utilizes a split-schedule day offering both Jewish studies and college preparatory courses emphasizing English, history, mathematics, the sciences and technology.
TABC, as it is commonly known, is run by the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Yosef Adler (who is also the Rabbi of Congregation Rinat Yisrael in Teaneck, NJ), and the Principal of General Studies, Mr. Arthur Poleyeff. Also in the administration is Rabbi Ezra Wiener, the Mashgiach Ruchani (Religious Life Guidance Counselor). The school was accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools in 2005.[1] Some of the undergraduate colleges that TABC students have been accepted to include Boston College, Brandeis University, Columbia University, Cooper Union, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, New York University, Princeton University, Queens College, Rutgers University, University of Pennsylvania and Yeshiva University.
The Advanced Placement Program (AP) courses offered are: AP Chemistry, AP Physics B, AP Physics C, AP Calculus AB and BC, AP Computers A and AB, AP United States History, AP English Literature and Composition, CL Jewish History, AP Psychology, AP Biology, and AP Statistics. Most of these are only primarily offered to juniors and seniors.
Each year over 90% of the Senior class decides to study for a year or two in Yeshiva in Israel before beginning college.
The school houses a program of the SINAI Special Needs Institute, an organization dedicated to serving the educational, psychological and emotional needs of Jewish children and young adults. The program serves children of below to above average intelligence with different degrees of learning disability and a wide variety of behavioral characteristics, whose needs could not be addressed by traditional Jewish day school programs and curricula.
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[edit] Extracurricular Activities
The school has a number of extracurricular activities, some that do well even on the international level. The school's Mock trial team was the 2005 New Jersey State Champions and received a lot of press coverage both in the Tri-State Region as well as overseas for its efforts to gain accommodations to participate in the National High School Mock Trial Championship in Charlotte, North Carolina without being required to compete during the Jewish Sabbath.[2]
The Torah Bowl team won its first league championship in the 2004-2005 school year. The Science Olympiad team won the tournament the first two times it competed, in the 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 school years. Chess and college-bowl are other popular activities.
The school also publishes several publications that are distributed to synagogues and institutions mostly within the New York / New Jersey / Connecticut Tri-State Region. These include Kol Torah, the school's weekly Torah publication, and Israel Report, a weekly collection of news items relating to Israel.
Additionally, the school has a student run Video Publication known as TABC TV which videos and photographs most school functions, along with producing special original videos for various purposes such as the honoring of a teacher.
TABC's chemistry and physics teacher, Dr. Joel Berman, and its computer science teacher, Mr. Marianko, run a summer science program for boys and girls in its computer and chemistry/physics labs. Also, both floor hockey teams run a little-league floor hockey league for boys from grades 4-8. Each summer, Rabbi Howard Jachter also runs a 1-week program for high school boys in which they learn a book of Tanakh in depth.
The school also had a noted Model UN team which participates in the competition run by Yeshiva University competing against Jewish schools from all over the US.
[edit] Athletics
Both the floor hockey varsity and junior varsity team went undefeated in the 2005-06 regular season, but neither team won their respective championships. The varsity team defeated Magen David, but lost to the Ramaz in the semifinals. The junior varsity team defeated Ramaz in the first round and defeated the Frisch in the semifinals, but lost to the undefeated Davis Renov Stahler in the championships.
In the 2006-2007 season, the wrestling team had its largest group of wrestlers ever. 29 wrestlers from the school participated in the prestigious Henry Wittenberg Wrestling Tournament XII. The team placed 3rd, its best ever. Two wrestlers placed 1st in their weight classes, 3 wrestlers placed 2nd, 2 placed 4th, and several placed 5th.
In the 2006-07 season, the Varsity Floor Hockey team went undefeated (17-0) beating the yeshiva league floor hockey powerhouse Davis Renov Stahler in the championship game 3-1.
Additionally, the school also has both a varsity and junior varsity basketball team.
Some other sport teams that TABC has include: Ping-Pong, Tennis, Volley Ball, and a champion bowling team.
The Yeshiva University Red Sarachek basketball tournament plays some of its games in the TABC gym, for which they got an award in 2004. The team was seeded tenth among the 18 teams, but they upset seventh seeded Yeshiva of Atlanta in the first round in which shooting guards Gabe Amzallag and Noam Block combined to score 54 points. Then they upset second seeded Ramaz in the second round, before losing to the eventual champions the Hyman School, located in a suburb of Kansas City. TABC finished in the fourth seed.
