Schools

Solomon Schechter Welcomes Community to New Home

School affixes mezuzah to entrance as students celebrate new Williston Park location.

“I don’t know how many of you had the opportunity to see the before and after here,” board president Fouad Pouyafar told an auditorium full of students last Friday morning. “The transformation is both magical and extraordinary. I assure you, our words of thanks are paled compared to the expressions of joy and smiles of our children when they came to our (school’s) new home.”

Despite the fact that classes had been going on for nearly three weeks, the welcoming ceremony marked the official opening of the building for the 200-plus students at the school and also drew numerous local crowds from the surrounding neighborhoods.

Originally based in Glen Cove, Solomon Schechter its upper school campus to the earlier this year as the Mineola School District undertook part of its , which will also close the .

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Pouyafar thanked numerous individuals in his address including Mineola School Superintendent Dr. Michael Nagler and Linda Ramos, who which was affixed to the main entrance of the school. “Ever since your gesture our move took a new meaning,” he said. “We were no longer relocating; we had found our new neighborhood.” In gratitude, Pouyafar presented Ramos with a variation of the paradoxical commandments as modified by Mother Theresa.

Several rabbis from the surrounding area attended the ceremony including Rabbi Marim Charry from Temple Israel in Great Neck, Rabbi Moshe Schwartz, head of school at the Kellman Brown Academy in Voorhees NJ, an affiliate of Solomon Schechter and Rabbi Lev Herrnson, the former head of the Schechter school.

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Other guests included Village of Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar and village librarian Donna McKenna. Schechter students will reportedly be afforded access to the village library as well as the school’s.

“Welcome to a place where curiosity rules, where children learn to honor timeless traditions and think for themselves,” Schechter principal Dr. Cindy Dolgin said, comparing students to a third century Rabbi who was involved in “and he was involved in many areas of knowledge, just like a Schechter person is expected to be.”

Sixth grader Jeremy Kohler began the ceremony by sounding the Tekiyat Shofar, a curved trumpet which is used in the calling from morning prayers, followed by “Shalom Aleichem,” a traditional song sung on Fridays at the beginning of the Jewish sabbath and the unexpected first notes of the “Kars 4 Kids” jingle as students were told to take their seats.

“May the young men and women sitting here today continue on their intellectual, social, spiritual, emotional and religious journeys together as a community, in this community, each as an individual and with God always with you,” Dr. Dolgin said.

Several musical presentations were also made with music teacher Joan Cohen leading the middle school choir in Jewish hymns and a rendition of The Beach Boys’ “Be True to Your School.” Afterwards the student body held a procession, carrying the sacred Sifrei Torah scrolls and the school banners around the building to the front entrance where the mezuzah was affixed.

School Rabbi Joshua Rabin shared a Torah verse that said “if the Torah were in the heavens, you would have to ascend to pursue and study it,” relating its meaning that “study, inquiry and exploration do not exist in the heavens, separate from our world, rather the true reflections of Torah necessarily exist in this world in our daily actions.”

He continued by saying that “in this building we will engage the world together; we will study, pray, teach Torah, sing songs, cheer, play basketball and volleyball, celebrate and rejoice, all of which is done with the purpose of helping you to form a holy community. Every act that we do in this building can serve as one that brings the Torah down to this earth, that makes it part of this special place.”


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