The Hebrew School WithThe ‘Anti-Establishment Vibe’

The fast-growing Tribeca Hebrew is threatening to morph into a (shh, don’t say it!) synagogue. But will it lose its sense of tight-knit community?

Photos by michael datikash

by Elicia Brown • Special To The Jewish Week photographs

The aroma of popcorn wafts through the air. The room rocks to the beat of Old McDonald (in Yiddish). The 20 or so students perch on bar stools, munching and mingling before they head to the colorful basement to attend — a film screening in a funky downtown theater?
Try Hebrew school.
For many Jewish Americans, the phrase conjures up stiflingly long afternoons, where the snack featured leftover cookies from the Shabbat kiddush and the lessons were almost as stale. But ask Isaac Ilyashov, a redheaded fifth grader digging into his paper bag of popcorn. “I really like it here because they have great programs and it’s a good atmosphere,” he says.
Such is the scene in the early minutes of a Monday afternoon at

Tribeca Hebrew. It is a school without a shul, an entity without an administration or affiliation, a pluralistic, parent-driven organization. It is the type of place where the room full of fifth graders, many from the well-regarded nearby public school, P.S. 234, throw themselves into a sandwich-making project for City Harvest, while the music of a Jewish pop singer seeps into their subconscious and they learn a few words of Torah from their tzitzit-clad teacher.
It is an organization that has proved so popular in its four years of existence that it has grown beyond its founders’ wildest expectations. It is in fact an entity that has proved so popular in its four years that it is starting to look like — could it be? — a synagogue.
But shh. Don’t tell them.
“Because of this anti-establishment vibe, people get very nervous when you mention synagogue. We’re very much bottom-up, homemade and built by families,” says Marnie Berk, a founder and board member.
Never mind that Tribeca Hebrew is in the midst of negotiating a contract for a “spiritual programming director” and working to define that role, while simultaneously conducting a search for a “spiritual leader.” Never mind that Tribeca Hebrew held its first of four Friday night services this school year for families on Nov. 9, and is considering designing a siddur of its own. Never mind that Tribeca Hebrew is actively seeking a larger space, and introducing more adult programming, like a monthly Torah study group (promoted as a Jewish book club).
Some members worry that as the organization expands it will lose its sense of tight-knit community, and will alienate the many families who never wanted to trade in soccer practice for Shabbat. But not everyone fears the “S” word — as in synagogue. “I hope that’s what it is someday, and if it isn’t we’ll start our own,” says Amy Katz, also a founder and board member, who plans to build that sanctuary with her husband Josh Leitner.
Tribeca Hebrew sprouted four years ago after four families whose children attend P.S. 234 decided the few local options for Jewish education didn’t meet their families’ needs. At first, two parents, Marnie Berk and Karie Parker Davidson, conceived a sort of “Hebrew play group” that would meet in a living room. Then the two mothers met Katz and Michael Dorf (also the founder of the Tribeca-based club, The Knitting Factory and a Jewish Week board member), who were likewise interested in launching a Jewish program for children. In its first year, the school attracted 40 students.
Now enrollment at Tribeca Hebrew is at 128. It also employs 13 teachers, an educational director, a music specialist and the “official shlepper,” Brian Mieles, sometimes known as “The Popcorn Man.”
The school filled a void, appealing to the growing numbers of Jewish families lured to the neighborhood by its huge loft spaces, prized public schools and close proximity to Wall Street. It is a young, wealthy community with lots of double strollers (and passengers), but little Jewish infrastructure to serve them.
“A lot of Jews are drawn to the Upper West Side because of the thriving Jewish life,” says Basya Schechter, the singer-songwriter and Pharoah’s Daughter bandleader who is Tribeca Hebrew’s music teacher through January, and herself a Tribeca denizen. In Tribeca, she said, “People are finding it for themselves. It’s going to be interesting to see what they build.”
Located on one of Tribeca’s narrow cobblestone side streets, where the steady hum of construction continues throughout the afternoon, Tribeca Hebrew is one of the early arrivals to the Jewish scene here. But it is far from the only business in the area to cater to children. A parent might buy toys and clothing down the street at Babylicious, purchase tiny shoes around the corner at Shoofly and send their toddlers to Washington Market School across the street.
In its unconventional structure, Tribeca Hebrew belongs to a growing phenomenon in the world of part-time Jewish education for elementary-aged children. “Everybody is looking for models that are more engaging and that break the old paradigm of Hebrew school,” says Jonathan Woocher, chief ideas officer at the JESNA, Jewish Education Service of North America. “When you have areas like Tribeca where the Jewish population is growing but there are few Jewish institutions it provides fertile ground for those kinds of grass-roots initiatives.”
Tribeca Hebrew has recently grown a few new branches beyond its Hebrew school, mostly dedicated to serving adult interest. More than 300 worshipers attended High Holy Day services sponsored by Tribeca Hebrew during the past two years, which were led by Storahtelling, the innovative, dramatic musical group. Tribeca Hebrew also held a Sukkot block party with live music, and this year for the first time, the organization joined the traditional Synagogue for the Arts for a Simchat Torah celebration.
Amy Strassler Goldstein, 41, welcomes the additional programs. “It’s more than a school,” she says. “I’ve heard the word ‘havurah’ bandied about. To me that word means community.”
“At other temples I would feel guilty if I weren’t there for services all the time and I didn’t keep kosher,” she says. “Here I’m connected to the Jewish community without feeling that guilt.”
So far, the community of Tribeca Hebrew revolves around its school. And even the educational program continues to be refined. Its mission? To make Jewish education “fun, engaging and inspiring.” Some lessons succeed more than others.
In a yellow classroom where third-graders fidget behind their desks on a recent Monday afternoon, the young teacher struggles to keep his charges fired up about the patriarch Abraham.
A sandy-haired boy hangs off his chair with his head upside down. A girl calls out to a friend, “You’re so lucky, your mom is here to pick you up.” Her friend retorts, “I have a dentist appointment.” Another boy tucks his head down on the chair beside him, attempting to nap.
In the classroom next door, Dani Saks is having better luck. A sophomore at List College, the joint program between Columbia and the Jewish Theological Seminary, Saks sports a knit kipa, a neatly trimmed beard, wire-rimmed glasses and a Nike hooded sweatshirt. He faces a particularly lively group of girls every Monday afternoon.
“Raise your hand if you think Dani’s haircut is bad,” calls out Isabelle Paly, 9. “Hebrew school is so much fun,” says Isabelle, who admits that some of the amusement derives from teasing the teacher.
Like many of the students at Tribeca Hebrew, Isabelle has one parent who isn’t Jewish. She asked her parents to sign her up so she could spend time with her friends, but to her surprise, she’s learning too.
Today she commends Saks for his matching game, in which blindfolded students grab an index card printed with a Hebrew word from the whiteboard and then without the blindfold attempt to choose its pictorial match from the set of index cards posted to the door. “This is very fun,” says Isabelle to Saks. “Congratulations on your part.”
The class also breaks into three groups to act out skits. After a giggling trio demonstrates the story in which Abraham invites three angels into his tent, Saks asks the class, “Anyone know what this story comes from?”
Isabelle ventures, “Israel?”
“Yes,” says Saks, “It’s from the Torah, from the parashah. What we just read on Saturday.” Saks seems to correct himself, “That’s what some Jews read in synagogue.”
“Some Jews” is part of the inclusive message that Tribeca Hebrew tries to inculcate in its teachers. “Most of our teachers come from JTS, but this is a pluralistic community,” says Karie Parker Davidson, the board president who trains the teachers in using sensitive language. “We’re not here to say that one way is better or not. Some Jews keep kosher, but we don’t want them to feel upset or alienated if their family doesn’t. We want them to understand what some people do.”
Davidson, a wisp of a woman with a commanding presence, grew up far away from the hub of hip Jewish education. Raised in an agricultural community south of San Francisco, Davidson attended Catholic school as a child. A course in Judaic studies at her Jesuit University stirred something in her, pointing to a religion worth exploring. She converted before meeting her Jewish husband.
Now she finds herself at the helm of what she jokingly refers to as a “school-plus.” Davidson is so energized by the current direction of Tribeca Hebrew, she wants to “stand from the top of the mountain tops and shout.”
Instead she stops a parent dropping off a student in the little café area above the Hebrew school. “Tell me what you think of this,” says Davidson, explaining a possible plan to hold Friday night services, Saturday morning services and a Chanukah party on the same weekend. “Is that a lot?” she asks. “Is that overkill?”
The woman concurs. It is too much. And in the background, in a small room where a dozen children crunch on their last kernels before heading down for their weekly dose of Judaism, the Yiddish Old McDonald plays on. Oy yoy yoy yoy yoy.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization