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Jarrad Saffren | Staff Writer
T he year 2022 was a big one for Mitchell Daar. The longtime
educator got the biggest job of his career, as head of school at
the Perelman Jewish Day School. He also moved with his fiancée
(now wife) from New York City to the Philadelphia area.

For Daar, 37, 2022 was about managing that transition. But in 2023, he
was able to do more than manage. He started putting his stamp on the
pre-K-5 institution that he took over.

After spending his early months on the job building relationships,
Daar could walk through the doors of the school and wave to everyone
he encountered. His team also implemented a geographic scholarship
program designed to expand the Perelman brand to zip codes in which
it may not have been present before. And finally, he was able to reopen
the school community post-COVID, putting kids back in full classrooms
and hosting holiday gatherings and family events.

As the year concludes, Daar is satisfied.

“It’s an incredible community, and it has already allowed for some
changes and will set a foundation for changes in the future,” he said.

Daar was hired in January 2022 and started that summer, after the
2021-’22 school year. When he arrived in the Philadelphia area, he had
to get to know parents, students, teachers and donors. He did that with
12 JUNE 15, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
“satellite dinners in people’s homes,” he
said. “Really making sure I was out there,”
he added.

After that, he started trying to spread
the word about his new institution. He
looked at data from the Jewish Federation
of Greater Philadelphia’s 2019 popula-
tion study and determined that there
were areas with Jewish populations that
were “underrepresented in our school,”
he said. Those zip codes included parts
of Montgomery County, parts of Bucks
County and portions of Philadelphia.

Perelman instituted a $12,000 per-year
scholarship for students from those zip
codes. Daar explained that the school
started the program by retroactively
providing the scholarship to 60 students
already in the school. But in 2023-’24, 15
new kids also will benefit from it. In the
future, Daar is hoping to offer it to more
new students.

“We want to make sure that families far
and wide have access to our incredible
Jewish day school experience,” he said.

In 2022-’23, it was certainly a more
better experience than it was during the
COVID years. Hundreds of people came
out for Chanukah and Purim events,
according to the head of school. Parents,
grandparents and other relatives
attended a multigenerational family
gathering. In early June, the community
hosted a parent kickball game. Before
that, it welcomed in Shabbat at a local
synagogue and held a Shabbat dinner
at which parents cooked for the whole
community. “We’re getting sort of, quote, back to
normal,” Daar said. “We run our program
to the fullest for the first time since
before the pandemic.”
There were other small changes,
too, like an investment in the school’s
enrollment department, the hiring of a
new human resources director and the
implementation of a parent survey on
“everything about our school,” Daar
said. Daar believes that in his first year, he’s
“laid a foundation for future growth.” The
tagline at Perelman’s recent gala was,
“The future starts now.” Next year will
be about “setting a path for that vision of
what it’s going to look like and how we’re
going to execute,” he said.

Daar intends to show Jews in the
community that “we’re the best elemen-
tary school in the Philadelphia area, and
it’s going to be because we’re a Jewish
day school.”
Recently, the former math teacher
taught a math class to a group of fifth
graders. “I was so impressed with the students.

The level of interest mixed with their
appreciation for learning and their knowl-
edge of the subject matter,” he said. “It
was an absolute joy to teach them.” ■
jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of the Perelman Jewish Day School
Mitchell Daar



nation / world
Polish City Throws Children’s
Bubble Party on Top of Jewish
Graves The chief rabbi of Poland sent an angry
letter to the mayor of Kazimierz Dolny,
condemning the eastern Polish town for
throwing a festive children’s bubble party
Children at a bubble party in
on the site of a former Jewish cemetery
Kazimierz Dolny, Poland, for
where the dead are still buried, JTA.org
Children’s Day on June 1
reported. Kazimierz Dolny authorities filled the former cemetery with bubbles for Children’s
Day, a holiday celebrated on June 1 in many European countries.

In the letter sent to Mayor Artur Pomianowski on June 6, Michael Schudrich wrote,
“The party organized on the yard, which was after all fun on the graves, proves that
for the municipal authorities, respect for human burial is not an important value.”
Schudrich said that it was “outrageous” that Pomianowski posted a video of the
bubble party on his mayoral Facebook page.

Bartłomiej Godlewskia, Kazimierz Dolny’s deputy mayor, sent a letter in response.

“I regret the wrong decision to organize Children’s Day. We share a common
history and a common home, and it was never our intention to hurt feelings — it
was human error. I hope that this event will not interfere with our dialogue and
cooperation in the future,” he wrote.

The former cemetery, now a children’s play area next to an elementary school, was
demolished roughly 50 years ago, but the bodies were not removed.

State Department Calls Roger Waters Concert ‘Antisemitic’
The State Department has condemned Roger Waters, calling the former Pink Floyd
frontman’s recent concert in Berlin “antisemitic,” JTA.org reported.

A reporter asked at a press briefing on June 5 whether the department agreed
with recent comments from Deborah Lipstadt, the department’s envoy for combating
antisemitism, who tweeted criticism of Waters.

“The concert in question, which took place in Berlin, contained imagery that is deeply
offensive to Jewish people and minimized the Holocaust,” the department wrote in a
response to the question, the Associated Press reported. “The artist in question has a
long track record of using antisemitic tropes to denigrate Jewish people.”
Waters is a leader in the call to culturally boycott Israel, often promoting the cause
of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, or BDS. Jewish leaders around
the world have long said his harsh criticism of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians
crosses the line into antisemitism.

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City of Miami Beach to Pay $1.3M to Settle Jewish
Congregation’s Discrimination Claims
The city of Miami Beach has agreed to pay $1.3 million to a small Orthodox
synagogue that accused it of discrimination by sending inspectors more than once
a week on average for two years, JTA.org reported.

At the same time, Congregation Bais Yeshaya D’Kerestir agreed to make changes
to its parking and noise practices.

The agreement ends an extended dispute over whether the congregation,
which meets in a single-family home owned by its rabbi, Arie Wohl, was a religious
institution or a private gathering.

The congregation argued that because its services are invitation-only, the
building’s use is similar to that of any other private home and so should not be
subject to scrutiny by city inspectors. It sued in April 2022, claiming that city officials
visited more than 126 times over two years to enforce various city laws, including 60
times to enforce pandemic restrictions on large gatherings.

The congregation also claimed that the city installed a video camera in 2021 that
surveilled only its property, not neighboring buildings. ■
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
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