local
Jewish Schools
Enjoy (Almost)
Normal Year
S JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
chools, much like the Biden
administration, seem like they
may never actually declare that
COVID is over, and that we are back to
normal. But for all intents and purposes, Jewish
schools in the Philadelphia area are ... wait
for it ... back to normal! (Pretty much.)
School offi cials, though, are quite lit-
erally paid to be wet blankets, and if you
have ever talked to even one of them, you
know that they are great at playing the
role. So naturally, while local principals
are excited about how much each day is
starting to resemble 2019, they are still
using the phrase “close to normal” to
describe the state of the pandemic as the
2021-’22 year ends.

“I would love to say we’re in the clear,
but I’ve learned a lot over the past two
years working in school with this,” said
Rabbi Marshall Lesack, the head of school
for the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
in Bryn Mawr. “I’m not going to say I
know what the future looks like, but I hope
we can return to normalcy for students.”
But in 2021-’22, there were unmasked
smiles, aft er-school sports and out-of-
school trips; there was social gathering
instead of distancing in classrooms and
cafeterias; there was little fear of a single
COVID case throwing the entire build-
ing off schedule.

Most area Jewish institutions imple-
mented the fi ve-and-fi ve rule recom-
mended by local health authorities and
their medical teams. If a student got
COVID, he or she left the building for
fi ve days and then returned with a mask
for fi ve more days. At that point, if the
student remained asymptomatic, he or
she ripped off the mask again and smiled
like it was 2019.

Th ose smiles were nice to see. Even
school administrators enjoyed them.

“It feels like a relief. Like everybody
can take a breath of fresh air,” said Liora
Knizhnik, the director of community
engagement and admissions at Kohelet
Yeshiva, an Orthodox institution in
Merion Station.

What was interesting about 2021-’22,
though, was that COVID cases were still
very much present, especially during the
winter omicron wave between December
and February.

Th e Abrams Hebrew Academy in
Yardley actually had more students get
COVID in 2021-’22 than the previous
year, according to Head of School Ira
Budow. But Budow did not have to shut
down any classes or, as he put it, “go
Zooming.” He just had to enforce the
fi ve-and-fi ve rule.

Other Jewish institutions, like Kohelet
Yeshiva and the Kellman Brown Academy
The Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy, like many area schools, enjoyed a
much more normal year in 2021-’22.

Photo by Jordan Cassway
in Voorhees, New Jersey, also reported
cases during omicron. But as Knizhnik
explained about Kohelet Yeshiva, the day-
to-day was not interrupted.

Budow compared it to dealing with a
cold or fl u. Th e rules were clear, he said.

“It wasn’t like two years ago where,
God forbid, you get the bug and you
think you’re going to die the next month,”
the rabbi added.

Jewish administrators agree that keep-
ing students in person is a priority. Once
they fi gured out how to do that last
year, with classroom cohorts, social dis-
tancing and strict masking policies, they
had something to build on, according
to Rachel Zivic, the head of school at
Kellman Brown, a pre-K-8 institution.

So, even as they reopened more and
more, both at the beginning of this
school year and aft er omicron, they were
not rewriting a plan from scratch. Th ey
were merely updating their existing blue-
prints to handle the changing nature of
the situation. Th ey also had the confi -
dence that, if another variant broke out,
they could revert to the original strategy.

In other words, aft er two years of deal-
ing with the crisis, they knew what they
were doing.

“It’s all been smooth sailing. We’re a
microcosm of everywhere else,” Zivic
said. “We certainly are impacted, but it
certainly hasn’t impacted the learning or
the morale.”
Judy Groner, the retiring head of school
at the Perelman Jewish Day School,
said that in 2021-’22 handling COVID
became routine. When there was a case,
Groner would get on the phone with her
administrative team and decide if the
student’s class needed to make any larger
changes. “It does work pretty much like clock-
work at this point,” she added.

Administrators are not sure if another
variant or virus will break out. But they
know one thing as they look ahead to
2022-’23: Th ey will not be caught off
guard again.

Groner said she’s “beyond certain” that
the Perelman administration will be able
to handle a crisis in her absence.

“Th ere’s defi nitely a feeling of lightness
in the building,” she concluded. “People
are healthy and safe.” JE
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
Longtime Jewish Theater Director
Deborah Baer Mozes Retiring
Y JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
ears ago, Rabbi David
Ackerman, then at Tiferet Bet
Israel in Blue Bell, sat down
with Deborah Baer Mozes to discuss how
a theatrical presentation could represent
Simchat Torah.

Ackerman wanted to teach the holiday
6 JUNE 16, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
to his Hebrew school students, and Baer
Mozes, as usual, had just the performa-
tive idea.

Th at Sunday morning, the 200 or so
students would sit in the sanctuary while
Baer Mozes’ actors from Th eatre Ariel,
her salon theater company that puts on
Jewish shows, acted out the story of the
holiday. As Ackerman recalled, they
unrolled the Torah around the outside of
the room, and the theater troupe brought
to life one story from each of the fi ve
books of the Torah.

Th e kids loved it; the community
may have loved it more; and everybody
“learned Torah together,” the rabbi said.

“Our continuity as a people is based
on telling and retelling our stories,” he
added. “Th at’s what Deborah does.”
Now, though, she will no longer be
doing it in the Philadelphia area.

Baer Mozes is retiring from her long-
time position as founding artistic direc-
tor of Th eatre Ariel which, for 30-plus
years has played to intimate, micro audi-
ences, oft en of between 25 and 60 people,
in synagogues and living rooms on the