Jewish literature records that as a student, the Talmud sage Hillel almost died from his dedication to study. On a winter day when he couldn’t pay the entrance fee to the House of Learning, he climbed to the building’s roof and pressed himself against the skylight to hear the lessons — and would have frozen had the students and teachers below not noticed and rescued him.
Today, the Milwaukee-area Jewish day school named for him, Hillel Academy, also appears to need rescuing. Measures to do that have recently been taken.
Beginning this school year, Lubavitch of Wisconsin will take over the management of the school in what Larry Appel, Hillel board member and first vice president, called a “strategic alliance.”
B. Devorah Shmotkin, director of the Children’s Lubavitch Living and Learning Center, will be the school’s principal, working with assistant principal Melissa Mohan and part-time administrative specialist Jeffrey Rosen.
School, Lubavitch and Milwaukee Jewish Federation officials all emphasized that these changes will not alter the basic character and orientation of the school. Policies will continue to be set by the school’s lay board and officers.
“It won’t be a Lubavitch cheder. No way, no how,” said Hillel president Scott Winkler.
“Hillel Academy is the same as it ever was. It strives to be a community school for parents who want more meaningful Jewish content in their and their kids’ lives than perhaps they are currently getting.”
Shmotkin said that the school’s being “committed to the entire Jewish community” is “precisely why it is a good match for us.” And among her intended plans is “letting people know what a hidden jewel exists within Hillel Academy.”
Difficult times
Hillel Academy is the Milwaukee-area’s oldest Jewish day school, having been founded in 1960 largely at the instigation of the late Rabbi David Shapiro, then-spiritual leader of Congregation Anshe Sfard.
In orientation, it is “a centrist, Modern Orthodox school,” according to Joe Bernstein, chair of the federation’s joint ad hoc Hillel Academy committee comprising representatives of the school and of the federation.
The federation provides funding to the school from the annual campaign; $308,800 has been allocated for fiscal year 2004-2005.
It also has a strong Zionist orientation. Past principals or headmasters have been Israelis, other Israelis have been and are teachers there, and the school often sends its eighth-grade classes on trips to Israel.
However, as Bernstein recounted, the school has fallen on difficult times. It has lost students to two more recently created area Jewish day schools: the Milwaukee Jewish Day School, which is more liberal in orientation, and the Yeshiva Elementary School, linked to the west side Orthodox community around Congregation Beth Jehudah.
As a result, “For the past ten years, Hillel Academy has had difficulties in maintaining an enrollment large enough to make the operation of the school financially efficient,” said Bernstein. Though levels of student achievement have remained high, the school has had “deplorable” administrative problems, he said.
So the federation’s agency relations committee “questioned whether Hillel Academy should continue to be funded by the federation,” and the ad hoc committee was appointed about a year ago to study the school’s situation, Bernstein said.
The climax, apparently, came when the school mounted an unsuccessful search for a new principal or headmaster. Hillel officials couldn’t find a candidate who would not only sustain the school according to its traditional vision, but also make “a long term commitment” to the school instead of using it as a short term rung on a career ladder, said Appel.
Moreover, enrollment has dropped to between 80 and 90 children this year, though Shmotkin said “there may be a few more” joining before the new school year begins on Sept. 1.
Yet “From a community standpoint, it would be costly for Hillel Academy to fail, because it serves a role which must be served by a local school,” said Bernstein. If Hillel Academy folded, “another school would pop up,” and if the federation was not willing to fund it “other people in the community would, and there would be an outflow of charitable funds.”
At this point, Appel conceived the idea “that we need a strategic alliance with Lubavitch” because of its record of outreach to the general Jewish community. Moreover, the world-wide Lubavitch organization “runs 80 community schools in the country and around the world. It has taken losing schools and made them successful,” Appel said.
The Hillel board approached Lubavitch of Wisconsin with the suggestion — and met with initial reluctance. “It would mean taking resources from existing and future programming and directing it to Hillel Academy,” said Rabbi Mendel Shmotkin, director of the Institute for Jewish Literacy-Lubavitch Adult Education.
But local Lubavitch doesn’t want Hillel Academy to fold, either. “Hillel Academy for us has always been one of the most central institutions in the Milwaukee Jewish educational scene,” the rabbi said.
In fact, local Lubavitch has a long history with the school. B. Devorah Shmotkin, the rabbi’s mother, taught there for 18 years and has served on its board and education committee; and other local Lubavitch adults have taught there.
Moreover, the rabbi and all his siblings and many other local Lubavitch children have attended it, and Lubavitch has directed many local families to the school.
The Hillel board asked Lubavitch for a proposal. Lubavitch responded, suggesting among other things that B. Devorah Shmotkin become principal, according to Winkler. The board accepted about three weeks ago by a vote of 16 in favor, one opposed and “a few abstentions,” said Appel.
Both Appel and Winkler are very enthusiastic about the decision. “I love this change,” said Winkler. “I think it holds out the best promise for long term viability for Hillel in terms of Lubavitch’s proven educational success at the nursery school, its openness to combined secular and traditional Torah text curriculum.”
“I am totally thrilled and excited about it,” said Appel. “I expect this to be the beginning of a very long relationship.”
Bernstein lauded the new management team as an “extraordinarily experienced and accomplished group of people…. I’m looking forward to seeing what they’re able to do with Hillel Academy.”
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