Florida Opens First Hebrew Public School
At a meeting in South Florida, Ben Gamla School principal Rabbi
Adam Siegel explains aspects of the new charter school's program to
parents and their children.
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Jewish Parents Need Financial Assistance
Margaret Schorr, a marketing and public-relations consultant,
wanted her 5-year-old daughter Hannah to learn Hebrew, but she
wasn't willing to pay the $8,000 to $13,000 annual tuition that
Jewish day schools in South Florida typically charge for
kindergarten.
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Other Parents
For attorney David Barnett, price wasn't the issue -- he wanted
his daughter in a more diverse environment.
Both families are set to take advantage of a groundbreaking option:
the nation's first Jewish-oriented charter school.
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Small Nurturing Environment
When the school year starts on Aug. 20, Schorr's daughter and
Barnett's daughter will be among the 430 or so students attending
the new Ben Gamla Charter School in this city. The taxpayer-funded
institution says that it will offer two hours of instruction a day
in Jewish-related topics, but not religion.
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Biggest Group Of Israeli Jews In America
Not a single class has yet been taught, but the school is
generating controversy among the estimated 240,000 Jews living in
Broward County, which also has one of the nation's largest
concentrations of Israelis.
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Congressman Says Israelis Need Help
Ben Gamla's charter was approved in March, but the school was
still the hot topic. Supporters of the school -- the brainchild of
the area's former U.S. congressman, Peter Deutsch -- say it could
serve as a national model, providing families with a financially
accessible option at a time when most non-Orthodox households are
opting not to send their children to Jewish day schools.
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Rabbi Siegel
By definition, charter schools are publicly financed elementary
or secondary schools that are managed privately, with minimal input
from local school boards, and whose innovative teaching methods are
expected to produce higher academic results.
Ben Gamla's director, an Orthodox rabbi named Adam Siegel, said that
students will learn Hebrew, Jewish culture and Jewish history for
two hours a day; faculty will be forbidden from teaching Torah or
prayer. Siegel, 37, added that the school will serve kosher meals,
and students will be permitted to organize their own worship
services.
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Broward School Board
Susan Onori, the charter-school coordinator for the Broward
school board, noted that her agency rejected Ben Gamla's original
curriculum, which utilized textbooks replete with menorahs, Stars of
David and other religious symbols. "We felt that was inappropriate
for a public school," she said, adding that the school made changes,
and is now in compliance with the law.
Onori vowed that the school would be monitored, and have its charter
revoked if it was found to be teaching Judaism.
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Israeli Mother Will Save $48,000 A Year
Tzipora Nurieli, an Israeli-born Hallandale woman, said that she
registered her three children -- ages 11, 9 and 7 -- at Ben Gamla,
thereby saving a combined $48,000 in annual tuition fees that she
would have been spending over the course of the year.
"I was supposed to send them to Hillel in North Miami Beach, but
this school is the most amazing miracle that's ever happened," she
said. "It's a combination of teaching my kids Hebrew, but also
taking advantage of the public-school system. This is like having
the best of both worlds."
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