[To view this article on the Jewish Press website, click here]
By BOB FRYER Jewish Press The Tampa Bay Jewish community has dreamed for decades of having enough demand to support a Jewish high school – and now in what seems the blink of an eye, there are plans for two Jewish high schools to open in Tampa next year. Hillel Academy of Tampa announced plans in September to open the first Jewish high school in Tampa for the 2024-25 school year. Now, the Orthodox Jewish organization Tampa Kollel announced it, too, will open a high school next year in Tampa. The school announced by Hillel Academy is to be named Tampa Jewish Community High School and the Tampa Kollel school will be named Tampa Bay Torah High School. In the case of Hillel Academy, the growth of the school founded in 1970 came slow, moving in the 1990s from its original location in south Tampa to the current campus on land adjacent to Congregation Beth Am at 2020 W. Fletcher Ave., Tampa. The school added grades along the way before this year announcing it would add grades 9-12, beginning in temporary modular classrooms on the same campus with younger students, but possibly having a separate campus in years to come. For Hillel Academy, having a high school was more than 50 years in the making. The story for the planned Tampa Bay Torah High School is vastly different. It will be operated by Tampa Kollel, an organization that did not exist until 2022 when it opened in a 10,000-square-foot building at 5209 Tampa Palms Blvd., sharing that building with the newly created Tampa Torah Academy. The academy opened in August 2022, serving children from preschool through seventh grade and adding eighth grade when the 2023-24 school year began. It offers Judaic studies and general studies. In the spring of 2022, Rabbi Jeremy Rubenstein of Queens, NY, announced he and eight other Orthodox families were moving to Tampa and that he and Rabbi Ariel Wohlfarth would be co-deans of the new Tampa Torah Academy. The influx of families provided the new academy with a built-in student body. At the same time, the Tampa Kollel was established to provide Jewish education classes, religious programming and one-on-one Torah learning to service the greater Tampa community. “The Kollel will be geared for both adult and child learning. Some of the teachers for Tampa Torah Academy’s Judaic program are affiliated with the Kollel as well. Additionally, the children of the Kollel families will enable Tampa Torah Academy to begin with a sizable student body,” he said at the time. In announcing plans for Tampa Bay Torah High School, Rabbi Rubenstein, who will serve as executive director of the high school, said the new school will begin the 2024-25 school year with a ninth grade and likely a tenth grade, then add a grade each year until if offers instruction for grades 9-12. School officials hope that in addition to drawing students from Tampa Torah Academy, it will attract other students from as far away as Pinellas County. Plans for the new school have not been finalized, but for the first year the Torah High School classrooms will likely be in the same building as Tampa Torah Academy, although Carrollwood and south Tampa also are being explored as possible locations. Rabbi Rubenstein said the needs of the parents who will send children to the high school will help dictate where the classrooms wind up. “We are striving for classes of 10 boys and 10 girls for ninth grade and around five per class for 10th grade. This is our hope,” he said adding that the plan is to have boys and girls in separate classes. Asked to describe the sort of education to be offered at the high school, he said, “We would characterize it as uncompromised and thorough Jewish education. It is a complete dual curriculum of Jewish studies and general studies found in Jewish communities and high schools across America (even non-Orthodox). Our environment as well is completely and totally Jewish, reflecting our values and our heritage with role models that live and breathe the Judaism they are teaching.” Tampa Torah Academy is affiliated with the Rabbinical Seminary of America (Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva), based in Queens, NY. Tampa Bay Torah High School will have the same affiliation. Serving as head of school for the new high school will be Rabbi Yossef Stulberger, who along with Rabbi Rubenstein are alumni of the Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva in Queens. A brochure about the new high school says the two rabbis bring “tried and true methods of Chofetz Chaim schools of the Tampa community. With a powerful network of over 20 high schools, TBTHS will be equipped to teach and inspire the next generation.” “Tuition will be $21,950 with many scholarship options including some, besides Step Up for Students (Florida Tax Credit Scholarship), that are not income based,” Rabbi Rubenstein said. “We do not come looking to create a high school, it is a grass-roots movement, responding to a need,” said Rabbi Stulberger. “It is what the parents have requested, they … want a more rigorous Jewish education.” After such a long wait for the area to have one Jewish high school, it might prompt some to wonder if going from zero to two such schools in one year can work, but backers of both of the new schools think it can. Jeffery Berger, president of the Tampa JCCs & Federation said Federation officials have for months been meeting with representatives from both of the new high schools, separately and in joint meetings. “It became clear,” Berger said, “that both groups have different visions and curricula and audiences for what they wanted their high schools to be, so it did not make sense to have just one school. We hope they can collaborate in areas where they can. It appears both groups have students interested, so we are thrilled for them.” Allison Oakes, head of school for Hillel Academy of Tampa, commented, “We are not in competition with the Tampa Kollel as our missions for Jewish high school education and the goals of children graduating from each school are so vastly different. In that spirit, multiple institutions dedicated to ensuring children continue their Jewish education through the 12th grade are welcomed.” An open house to inform parents about the new Tampa Bay Torah High School will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 29 at 7 p.m. at the Maureen & Douglas Cohn Jewish Community Center, 13009 Community Campus Drive, Citrus Park. For more information, visit www.TBTHS.org
Comments