A major milestone in a historic trend was publicized last week when the Solomon Schechter School of Queens sent a letter to parents noting that its trustees voted to rename the school as Queens Hebrew Academy. “The new name reflects the community’s changing needs and is consistent with our mission’s statement. It sets the stage for the school’s future, while honoring our 68-year legacy.”
The letter notes that in recent years, families enrolling their children at this school have asked for a more traditional approach towards Jewish education, and in the past seven years, the students have been praying with a “traditional/Orthodox-style minyan” that led to enrollment doubling, mostly with Bukharian students joining the school.
“Just as our founders envisioned, we remain committed to providing students of all backgrounds with a strong Judaic and General studies education,” the statement read.
The shift in the school’s religious identity was gradual and organic, coming from the parents who pay tuition, participate in school events, and seek partnership with teachers in shaping their children’s Jewish future.
The chasm between Jewish denominations in this country continues to widen as differences grow in the political, social, and spiritual directions of Orthodox and non-Orthodox communities. When a school named after a leading thinker of Conservative Judaism made the renaming decision, it bucked a movement founded as the middle ground between Reform and Orthodox, which has been moving to the left in the past half century.
Located in Kew Gardens Hills, the school was built in 1965 when Conservative temples such as the Kew Gardens Hills Jewish Center and Hillcrest Jewish Center were among the largest synagogues in the borough, contributing to its student body. The school was founded in 1956, with a class of 21 inside the Rego Park Jewish Center. Its namesake was a Romanian-born theologian who immigrated to New York in 1902 and breathed life into the Jewish Theological Seminary with a “positive-historical” approach to Judaism that was less radical than Reform, but open to changing halachah in ways that were unacceptable to Orthodox rabbis.
In the half century since then, it welcomed newcomers from Iran, Israel, and the former Soviet Union. It now stands amid a growing population of Bukharian Jews who have returned to Jewish observance in the past generation, largely as a result of hard-won kiruv efforts by organizations such as Chazaq, Emet, Chabad, and rabbis within this community.
Those whose families arrived in America two generations ago receiving aid from the Jewish community are now giving back by contributing to Ashkenazi-built schools that welcomed their children, such as Yeshiva of Central Queens, Yeshiva Har Torah, Yeshiva Tiferes Moshe, Yeshiva Ketana of Queens, Bnos Malka Academy, and the Bais Yaakov Academy of Queens. The newly named Queens Jewish Academy joins this constellation of mosdos sprinkled across the map of our community.
But then there are voices on social media that are not promoting the proper message of positive change. “The worldwide Bukharian community is very pleased and happy to hear the recent news that the largest Reform school in Queens has decided to change course and come a fully Orthodox school,” wrote Instagram account “bukhariancommunity,” which is not associated with any major organization in this community.
It credited Rabbi Abram Babakhanov, mara d’asra at Congregation Shaare Shlomo in Jamaica Estates, and the school’s Coordinator of Community Engagement in addition to school president Roy Moussieff with making this change.
It also connected this decision with the recent presidential election. “The people of Queens and New York City are starting to wake up and get away from the sick and unstable leftists and liberal agenda that has been pushed down our throats.”
In response, dozens of comments pointed out that the school was Conservative, not Reform, and one alumna asked whether it is a win for people who seek a Jewish education, albeit not an Orthodox one.
On a much smaller scale, this transformation happened many years ago at an apartment building for seniors in Flushing where my grandparents lived. The neighborhood was becoming Chinese, and there were no Conservative or Reform rabbis available to lead the Shabbos services.
I offered to ask among my friends who could lein the parshah, but on the condition that a mechitzah must be installed to separate the genders. Having attended an Orthodox shul in prewar Europe, it was a homecoming of sorts for my grandfather, but other members of the minyan were used to egalitarian seating. The conversation that led to the mechitzah and the minyan’s page on the Go Daven database was sensitive and careful, rational, and ultimately successful. There was no victory speech given on the first Shabbos when men and women sat separately at that apartment building minyan.
The same gentle manner of conversation resulted in a handful of Conservative temples across Queens, and a couple in Nassau County doing the same in the past 30 years, as they transformed into Chabad shuls. Step inside these sanctuaries and note that the memorial plaques on the walls have not been removed. Those names built these shuls, and their presence, facing the separately seated mispalelim, testifies to Jewish continuity rather than denominational divisions.
It is perhaps ironic that Solomon Schechter was born to a family of Chabad chasidim and named after their founding rebbe. Now, his distant relatives – physical and spiritual – who serve as shluchim worldwide, are giving former Conservative institutions a new breath of life.
In contrast to many of the yeshivos in Queens where children attend the same schools as their parents and grandparents, those attending Queens Hebrew Academy have very different last names than those appearing on the dedication plaques. But they represent the same people, committed to Jewish continuity in the way that speaks to their generation. We are fortunate to live in a moment when a growing number of Jews recognize that continuity is guaranteed with loyalty to halachah, the Jewish common law that was brought down to the people at Sinai, which has guided us throughout our history.
By Sergey Kadinsky
