They come for the education but stay for the Jewish experience.  Every year for the past decade Russian Jewish parents have been lining up to enroll their kids at Mazel Day Scool, one of the most desired and fastest growing Jewish learning institutions in Brooklyn.  In fact it’s not just Russian Jews that attend this non-for-profit private school located in the largely Russian area of South Brooklyn, but Jewish families from a diverse range of backgrounds send their kids to Mazel .  What attracts families to Mazel Day School is a unique and successful blend of secular education and Jewish studies.

For the predominantly Russian family base which places a high priority on intellectual development it all starts with a top education.   In 2011, 80% of Mazel’s  3rd grade students and 100% of Mazel’s 4th graders exceeded the proficiency standard on the NYS administered math tests.  Mazel’s students far surpassed the average Math and English scores achieved by their counterparts at other Jewish schools in the metro area and at nearby public schools.  How does Mazel deliver the type of results that would make an elite Upper East Side school green with envy?  The answers are quite straightforward.  Instead of “teaching-to-the-test,” a technique now widely practiced in many schools,  Mazel’s teachers  teach skills for life, progressively developing each student’s ability to learn complex concepts.  Class size is kept small so that teachers can attend to each child’s individual learning style and abilities instead of the “one-size-fits-all” approach implemented at larger institutions.

High grades on standardized tests are however only part of the story at Mazel. What makes Mazel truly exceptional is that it has helped to create a renaissance of Jewish cultural learning in the Russian-speaking Jewish community.

Russian Jews have traditionally had little interest in the religious aspects of Jewish life.  Reasons for that include coming from a secular and “rational” Soviet society as well as a persistent distrust of authority, in Judaism’s case the Rabbis’ authority over the community.  After immigrating to America, most Russian Jews found little use for Torah and community involvement and instead focused their abilities on creating a materially comfortable life not available to them in Eastern Europe.

After reaching a high level of affluence in less than a generation many Russian Jews discovered that the climb to economic wealth has left them spiritually unfulfilled and living in a situation where ties between them and other members of the Jewish community are virtually nonexistent.  To create stronger bonds to Judaism and to the local Jewish community Mazel has played a role in being not only a school for kids but also a center where parents can participate in Family Day events and parent-only activities.  Some of the fathers who would otherwise never have done so choose to attend weekly Torah classes while mothers are encouraged to attend Jewish Women’s Circle events.  . The result is that families at Mazel Day School achieve a stronger sense of community and a feeling of being aggregately responsible for their children, for the school, and for each other, and isn’t this the best lesson we can teach the next generation of Jewish students?
To learn more about Mazel Day School, you can contact the author at gennadyfavel@yahoo.com