Shalhevet High School

Shalhevet Logo

Shalhevet High School is a co-educational, college-preparatory, Modern Orthodox Jewish high school in Los Angeles, California. It is the only Modern Orthodox, co-educational Jewish day school in California. Boys and girls follow the same Judaic curriculum, including Talmud, in mixed classes, which is unusual for Orthodox Jewish high schools, and a full program of visual arts, music, drama, and athletics is offered in addition to the dual curriculum of secular and Judaic studies. Co-founded in 1992 by Jerry Friedman, Ed. D., and Steve Bailey, Ph.D., the school's founding headmaster, Shalhevet developed a modified version of the Kohlberg-Gilligan "Just Community" template, which he hoped would become a national model for progressive education in an Orthodox Jewish setting. A fundamental principle is that moral development can be taught through the presentation of "moral dilemmas", which create in students cognitive dissonance that leads to moral growth; another is that a limited school democracy makes students stakeholders in the values the institution seeks to promote.

Shalhevet has about 223 students in grades 9 -12 as of 2014-15 and is led by Head of School Rabbi Ari Segal, formerly of the Robert M. Beren Academy of Houston, Texas and a graduate of Yeshiva University and the Goizueta School of Business at Emory University. The school's principal is Noam Weissman, another YU graduate and co-recipient, with Shalhevet teacher Rabbi David Stein, of the 2013 Mayberg Family Foundation grant ^[1] for their original Judaic Studies curriculum. Other headmasters were Nathan O. Reynolds, who had served as General Studies principal on two previous occasions;and Rabbi Elchanan Weinbach, whose tenure lasted just two years following Dr. Friedman's retirement in spring 2008. Mr. Roy Danovich is currently principal of General Studies. A less successful lower school that had opened in 2000 was closed at the end of the 2009-10 school year because it was draining resources from the high school.

Rabbi Segal became headmaster in August 2011.

Twenty-three years old as of 2014-15, Shalhevet is unique because of its somewhat democratic nature and its emphasis on moral development, guided by Jewish values. The high school holds an hour-long, weekly, student-led Town Hall at which current events, school issues and other controversies are discussed. These meetings occasionally have outside speakers, such as U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), and have ranged over topics from Darfur and Tookie Williams to Kanye West's controversial music videos. Most discussions concern school-related issues, however, such as dress code, grade and exam policies, and student elections. A school constitution empowers an Agenda Committee, which sets the Town Hall agenda, manages elections, and oversees the other committees; a Student Activities Committee, responsible for pep rallies, movie nights and other social events; and a Fairness Committee, which adjudicates issues of fairness among the students and faculty. All committees have student, faculty and administrative representation.

In recent years the school has added a council-style Advisory system called Ma'agal Hakshava ("listening circle," in Hebrew), run by Dean of Students Roy Danovitch.

Debate

Shalhevet's debate teams, formerly led by Mr. Christopher Buckley,^[2] have won many awards in Model Congress and Model UN events around the U.S., including awards as the best delegation at Penn Model Congress (2009–2010) and second best delegation at Princeton Model Congress. In February 2013, senior Daniel Schwartz became the first observant Jew elected president of Penn Model Congress.

Performing Arts

It has twice-yearly drama productions led by Ms. Emily Chase, a fall main stage production and a spring production consisting of one-act plays written and directed by students. Its 20-voice choir led by Mrs. Joelle Keene perform secular and religious repertoire at school and community events as well as two concerts per year.

Journalism

Shalhevet's award-winning news source is The Boiling Point, published seven times per year in print and on the web since April 2010 at www.shalhevetboilingpoint.com. It is written, edited, and laid out by students of the high school, with help from Mrs. Joelle Keene, CJE, the paper's faculty advisor. The Boiling Point has won numerous national awards from the National Scholastic Press Association, Columbia Scholastic Press Association, and Quill & Scroll International Honorary Journalism Society, including six NSPA Story of the year awards and more than two dozen national awards for reporting and photography and three for layout and design from CSPA and Quill and Scroll.

The Boiling Point was a finalist for both the NSPA Pacemaker and CSPA Gold Crown awards—considered the Pulitzer Prizes of scholastic journalism—for its 2011-12 editions,^[3] and named a Crown winner in March 2013 and again in 2014. In June 2013 it was awarded two Simon J. Rockower Awards^[4] from the American Jewish Press Association (AJPA), after becoming the first high school publication ever to enter the contest. It won a third Rockower award in 2014.

The paper went online in April 2010 and in November was awarded First Prize, Multimedia Story of the Year, by the NSPA in its first year, followed by two Multimedia Story of the Year Honorable Mentions the two years after that. Mrs. Keene has served on the National Board of Judges of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and leads workshops at its annual convention in New York every year. In October, 2013, it hosted the inaugural national conference and Shabbaton of the Jewish Scholastic Press Association (JSPA), co-sponsored by Shalhevet and the AJPA. Keynote speaker was Gary Rosenblatt, editor and publisher of the New York Jewish Week, and the meeting received press coverage on both coasts.^[5]

Athletics

Over the 23 years that Shalhevet has been in existence, the school's athletic teams, the Firehawks, have experienced much success. Shalhevet has men's and women's soccer and basketball teams, as well as baseball, softball and girls' volleyball.

Shalhevet's boys Varsity Basketball team reached the CIF Division 5A finals for the first time in school history in February 2013. A year earlier, the team won the Yaffee Boys Basketball Tournament in Houston, Texas, defeating Beren Academy in the final game. The team also reached the division playoffs in 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2014.

In addition, the boy's basketball team won the Tier I Championship at the Red Sarachek Basketball Tournament, led by beloved coach Colin Jamerson. The Firehawks' tournament MVP. Senior Jojo Fallas '13 has committed to play basketball for Cornell University beginning in 2013.

The Girls' basketball team has also performed well at the Hillel Tournament in Miami, bringing back a trophy whenever they've played. During the 2013-14 season, the Girls Varsity team made it to the CIF Division 6 finals for the first time.

The Baseball team was the most successful team in the mid-2000s, earning playoff berths in 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2013 including a run to the CIF Southern Section Semi-Final in 2005.

The Boys' soccer team reached the playoffs most recently in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

The Boys Tennis was started in the spring of 2012 by Adam Wannon and Max Lipner. Nathan Benyowitz in his Freshman and sophomore years posted an undefeated regular season record in years 2014 and 2015.

Awards: Boys Basketball - All-League - Daniel Medioni (2000, 2001); Zev Wexler (1996, 1997). Boys Baseball - All-League - Eli Lutske (2001), Max Levavi (2002), Josh Pollick (2002), Matt Rosenbaum (2003), Gabe Miller (2005), Stephan Ohayon (2004,2005) (League MVP 2005), Jordan Denitz (2005), Louis Keene (2008), Daniel Bain (2008), Jonathan Garshofsky (2008), Saul Rothman (2009). Girls Softball- All-League- Penina Smith (2009), Lindsay Wess (2009)

Notable faculty (Past and Present)

• Nathan Reynolds, former headmaster of Chadwick, Harvard High School and Westlake School for Girls. He was headmaster at Westlake for more than 20 years, continuing through its merger with Harvard into Harvard-Westlake. Most recently, Mr. Reynolds was president of the Ojai Foundation, a support group for public schools.
• Rabbi Yitzhak Etshalom, author of "Between the Lines of the Bible" (Yashar Books), serves also on the faculties of the Yeshiva of Los Angeles and the Simon Wiesenthal Center as Associate Director of Project Next Step.
• Noah "Noey" Jacobson, dubbed the "Cutest Maccabeat" by the Jewish Daily Forward, teaches a weekly course. Jacobson, who still performs for the Maccabeats, is now a solo artist famous for hit singles "Lost and Found" and "Tell Me." ^[6] Rabbi Ari Segal brought in Jacobson because "he serves as a role model of everything Shalhevet stands for." ^[7]

Notable alumni

• Coby Linder, the drummer of the alternative rock band Say Anything, is a graduate of the 2003 class.
• Zvika Krieger, Strategist - Office of the Secretary of Defense at United States Department of Defense; former national political correspondent, The New Republic; former Middle East correspondent, Newsweek, is a graduate of the 2001 class.
• Tzvika Einbinder, advisor to the Israeli minister of national infrastructure "Silvan Shalom", is a graduate of the 2001 class.
• Shoshana Cohen http://www.yeshivattalpiot.com/, Co-founder and Rosh Yeshiva, Yeshivat Talpiot, Jerusalem

References