Jewish Pittsburgh’s next pioneers

Pittsburgh’s educational landscape is changing.

When I was in ninth grade, my dad told me he read an article in the Forward about a new Jewish high school being built in Greensboro, North Carolina. It was called the American Hebrew Academy. We went to see it.

What I remember most is a mud pit and a trailer. There were no alumni, no traditions and no older students. We were being asked to believe in a school that did not yet exist.

My family took the chance, and I became a member of its inaugural class.

In Hebrew, chalutza means pioneer. A pioneer does not simply follow a path. A pioneer helps create one. That was part of being in a founding class. We were building the traditions and culture that would come after us.

I remember classes of 12 students intensely arguing about why chicken with cheese was not permissible and what our rabbis meant by creating a fence around the Torah. I remember AP Government and AP U.S. History seminars where we scrutinized the Constitution and studied our nation’s founding. I remember teachers who knew us extraordinarily well.

I spent four months living and studying in Hod HaSharon, Israel. I walked a mile to a little blue falafel stand where the man behind the counter spoke no English. If I wanted to order, I had to use Hebrew. My Hebrew improved quickly. I traveled throughout Israel and experienced Jewish history in the places where it happened. I traveled to Poland and stood at Auschwitz.

Hebrew was no longer simply a subject. Israel was no longer an abstract place thousands of miles away. Jewish history was mine.

Academically, I was extraordinarily well prepared. I was accepted to Northwestern University, an opportunity I ultimately declined to return to Israel, where I lived for the better part of four years.

But Jewish high school gave me something beyond an exceptional education.

It taught me that being Jewish was something to be proud of, to celebrate and to hold dear.

More than 25 years later, I am head of school at Community Day School, the Jewish day school where I was once a student. My own children now attend CDS.

CDS was founded as a community Jewish day school. We exist to serve the broad spectrum of Jewish Pittsburgh, without labels, bringing together families with different traditions, practices, backgrounds and perspectives. We do that without compromising academic excellence. Our students deserve exceptional teachers, rigorous coursework, serious scholarship and opportunities that prepare them to thrive wherever they go next.

So we are asking a straightforward question:

Why should a community Jewish day school, fundamentally here to serve the broad spectrum of Jewish Pittsburgh without labels and without compromising on excellence, stop after eighth grade?

Why, at precisely the time when our children are beginning to wrestle with who they are, what they believe, where they belong and what Judaism will mean in their adult lives, do we say goodbye?

David Zalik recently wrote that “Jewish day schools are a bubble, and that is the point.”

I understand exactly what he means. There is something powerful about spending adolescence in a place where being Jewish does not need to be explained before it can be explored. Where Torah and AP U.S. History can both be taken seriously. Where Hebrew, Israel, science, literature, athletics and service can all be part of one excellent education.

That did not make my world smaller. It prepared me to enter a much larger one.

Pittsburgh’s educational landscape is changing. Pittsburgh Public Schools is undergoing significant restructuring, and families are asking what high school will look like for their children in the years ahead at an affordable price point that does not compromise on excellence.

Jewish teenagers are also coming of age amid rising antisemitism and complicated conversations about Israel and Jewish identity. Our response cannot be to shelter them from difficult ideas. We need to prepare them to encounter those ideas with knowledge, confidence and a strong sense of who they are.

Pittsburgh is fortunate to have Hillel Academy and Yeshiva Schools, two fine Jewish schools that have educated generations of Jewish children and continue to play an important role in our community. What Pittsburgh does not have is a community Jewish high school designed to serve families from across the broad spectrum of Jewish life.

So many people in our community have asked for a space for our teenagers to ask hard questions, learn and disagree. A place to wrestle seriously with Judaism, Israel, history, identity and the world around them.

Pittsburgh has extraordinary rabbis, educators, communal leaders and professionals. It has world-class universities, hospitals, museums, archives, laboratories, nonprofits and businesses. A community Jewish high school could draw upon all of them. Students could learn from scholars and professionals, pursue internships, serve their community and experience Pittsburgh as part of their education.

But the case for a Jewish high school cannot be rooted in fear.

We should not consider building one because of Oct. 27 or Oct. 7. We should consider building one in spite of them.

The answer to antisemitism cannot be a smaller Jewish life. Our answer can be more Jewish learning, more Hebrew, more questions, more knowledge and more young people who know that being Jewish is something to be proud of, to celebrate and to hold dear.

It also has to be affordable.

If we are serious about exploring a community Jewish high school, access has to be built into the model from the beginning. Tuition assistance, philanthropy, partnerships and thoughtful use of existing resources all matter. A community school must be accessible to the community it exists to serve.

Before any decision is made, we need to know: Is there sufficient demand? Do Pittsburgh families want this, will they enroll their children, and what would they need academically, Jewishly, socially and financially to say yes?

More than 25 years ago, my family said yes to a school that was little more than a mud pit and a trailer. That decision changed the trajectory of my life.

I became a chalutza.

Now we need to determine whether Jewish Pittsburgh is ready for its next generation of chalutzim.

Pirkei Avot teaches us: “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”
So we begin. PJC

Casey Weiss is head of school at Community Day School.