Community News

Small-Schools Conference Scholarship

We are pleased to announce the inauguration of the RAVSAK Small School Professional Development Scholarship. This scholarship will make the training, networking and professional development opportunities of the RAVSAK Annual Leadership Conference accessible to educators from small Jewish day schools and small Jewish communities across North America.

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Job Market

Title: Head of School
School: The Akiva School
City: Nashville, TN

The Akiva School is the only independent elementary community day school of its kind in the region and has earned both local and national recognition as an outstanding academic institution. The school is located minutes from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, a culturally vibrant city...

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Featured School

The Paul Penna Downtown JDS

The Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School appreciates the diversity of contemporary Jewish life. Our Senior Kindergarten to Grade 8 curriculum presents children with a holistic view of the world, weaving together the Jewish and general facets of their lives. In this highly enriched learning environment, students develop excellent academic skills and a meaningful Jewish identity.
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Associate Member

The David Project
is a non-profit organization that is leading an educational movement of effective Israel supporters. We aim to inform and inspire strong voices for Israel through our dynamic and comprehensive educational curricula, workshops, and seminars.
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Moot Beit Din is a unique program that enables students from Jewish high schools to delve into issues of Jewish law through creative engagement with contemporary situations. It provides students with an opportunity to explore the relevance of Halakhah and to stretch their imagination in applying Jewish traditional resources to their lives and to the modern world. After intensive study of halakhic sources, students prepare written decisions to a case given to them. They then present and defend their decisions before judges during oral argument at the competition.

This year’s competition will take place in Denver, CO.  Participating schools this year are:

  • American Hebrew Academy (Greensboro, NC)
  • Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School (Rockville, MD)
  • Frankel Jewish Academy (W. Bloomfield, MI)
  • Herzl/RMHA at the Denver Campus (Denver, CO)
  • Jack M. Barrack (formerly Akiba) Hebrew Academy (Philadelphia, PA)
  • Jewish Community High School of the Bay (San Francisco, CA)
  • Kehillah Jewish High School (Palo Alto, CA)
  • Milken Community High School (Los Angeles, CA)
  • New Community Jewish High School (West Hills, CA)
  • The Shoshana S. Cardin School (Baltimore, MD)
  • Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union (West Orange, NJ)
  • Solomon Schechter School of Westchester (Hartsdale, NY)
  • TanenbaumCHAT Kimel Centre (Toronto, ON)
  • TanenbaumCHAT Wallenberg Campus (Toronto, ON)
  • Tarbut V’Torah (Irvine, CA)
  • The Weber School (Atlanta, GA)

Mazel tov to all of the competing teams at the 2008 Moot Beit Din in Toronto, especially the first and second place winners:

  • Track A: 1st, Jewish Community High School of the Bay; 2nd, TanenbaumCHAT Kimel Centre
  • Track B: 1st, The Shoshana S. Cardin School; 2nd, Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School

[Click Here to see pictures taken by Michal Cahlon during the 2008 Moot Beit Din]

A hearty mazal tov to all the students who have devoted so much effort to learning and applying Jewish sources!

For any questions regarding the Moot Beit Din, or if you are interested in enlisting your school's participation next year, contact Rachel Bergstein, RAVSAK's Coordinator of High School Programs, at rachel@ravsak.org.