Print
E-mail
Comment
Rate
Meet the Fuchs Mizrachi class of ’96 - They’ve come a long way!
Click image to enlarge
   |
BY: JANE G. LEFKO, Freelance Writer
The formal invitation to Fuchs Bet Sefer Mizrachi School’s first high-school commencement exercises, held on June 9, 1996, began with a quote from Psalms: “This is the day the Lord hath made. Rejoice and be glad in it.”
On that Sunday ten years ago, the six young women and four young men in blue gowns and mortarboards, as well as the rest of the extended Fuchs Mizrachi family, had much about which to rejoice. By 1996, the school, which had opened 13 years earlier with 18 students in pre-k and kindergarten classes, had grown to almost 300 in pre-K through 12th grade. Started in rooms rented from Taylor Road Synagogue, the modern Orthodox day school has now filled its home in the former Northwood School building in University Heights.
By the time it graduated its first high school class, Mizrachi had a chartered chapter of the National Honor Society and been awarded the Jerusalem Prize, presented biennially to only two schools worldwide. Most members of the first graduating class spent a postgraduate year in Israeli seminaries and yeshivot, then returned to American colleges and universities.
On Friday afternoon, June 9, Fuchs Mizrachi School (the name has changed slightly to reflect a benefactor) will launch its first alumni reunion weekend with a school tour. The next day, Rabbi Alan Berkowitz, headmaster of New York City’s Ramaz Lower School and former assistant educational director of Fuchs Mizrachi, will be the guest speaker at a festive luncheon.
At a melave malke (Saturday night gathering) there will be videos of alumni who have made aliyah, many serving proudly in the Israeli army. Graduation ceremonies for the class of 2006 will be held Sunday morning. Completing a cycle, the class of ’96 will gather that evening for a 10th anniversary barbecue.
Organizer of the reunion weekend and head of the FMS Va’ad Habogrim (alumni association), Matthew Wieder, hopes the weekend will make former students feel welcome. It will also give Mizrachi’s educators a chance to see the kinds of individuals their efforts have produced.
Wieder, who spent a year-and-a-half studying in Israel after high school, and received his bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania, is a good example. He has been living in Beachwood for the past year with his wife Devorah, a busy Ob/gyn resident, and their two small children. A senior software engineer with the Satori Group, Wieder also makes time to teach an early morning Gemarah class at the Fuchs Mizrachi/Torat Tzion Kollel. “Being in the first class at Mizrachi gave us a measure of input into the school and taught us to take leadership roles in whatever we do,” he says.
Devorah (Pomerantz) Goldstein, valedictorian of the class of ’96, agrees. “We had really close relationships with our peers and our teachers because we were such a small group.”
Goldstein, who studied in Israel, then at Cleveland State University and Wheelock College in Boston, is a certified child-life specialist. Married in November 2001, she and her husband met in Miami, moved to Denver, “just because we wanted to try it,” then headed back east to Pittsburgh, where she works on special projects at the University of Pittsburgh Institutional Review Board; her husband is receiving his MBA degree from Carnegie-Mellon.
Soon, her husband’s job will take the couple, expecting their first child in August, to San Antonio. Whenever they move to a new community, Goldstein says, her first step is to “check us out the shul, so we move nearby.”
Dov Pickholtz, also class of ’96, says during his year in Israel he enjoyed the kindness of several Mizrachi families who had previously moved there. (Mizrachi families joke that the school’s enrollment would number many additional students if the Zionist school were not so successful in fostering aliyah!)
While attending Yeshiva University in New York City, Pickholtz founded an a capella group, and performed in arts festivals on guitar. By the time he received his bachelor’s degree in psychology and an associate degree in Judaic studies, Pickholtz had married the former Tammy Schwartz, whom he met while working as a sound engineer for a Jewish band. The Pickholtzes are the parents of two daughters.
Since college, Pickholtz has held a variety of jobs in medical research and completed his first two years of medical school at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine. Commissioned as a second lieutenant in the US Army, he expects to begin clinical work this July at Lutheran Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Rachelle (Cik) Lewinger spent her post-Mizrachi year in Israel, then attended Boston University where she met her husband, an entrepreneur. Upon graduation from the University of Miami with a degree in business management, Lewinger began classes in interior design. Currently living in Florida, where she is taking a career break to raise her two young daughters, Lewinger says Fuchs Mizrachi gave her “a good foundation for who I want to be. The kind of community and school I want for my family is like what I had.”
In June 2004, Alan Hollender, salutatorian of the class of ’96, received smichah (rabbinic ordination) from Yeshiva Chovevei Torah, a “modern and open Orthodox institution” of advanced Torah study. Hollender, who found his year of Israeli study at Yeshivat Har Etzion intellectually intensive, says the beautiful thing about the rabbinate is interacting with people on different levels. “I may be learning one-on-one with someone; that may lead to personal discussions. Then I might be asked to officiate at their life-cycle event.”
Hollender has served as a rabbinic intern, then an assistant rabbi in the New York area, and he expects to become rabbi of his own congregation this summer. There are similarities, he says, between his ongoing job as a teaching fellow at SAR Academy, a Modern Orthodox high school in Riverdale, N.Y., and those of the fellows who study and teach in Fuchs Mizrachi’s Torat Tzion Kollel. “Periodically, we get together to learn Judaic subjects with groups of five or six kids. No grades, no pressure, just a very positive interaction.”
As these and other alumni demonstrate, Fuchs Mizrach School, with a current enrollment of 387 students and poised to build a state of the art new campus in Beachwood, has much to celebrate.
On that Sunday ten years ago, the six young women and four young men in blue gowns and mortarboards, as well as the rest of the extended Fuchs Mizrachi family, had much about which to rejoice. By 1996, the school, which had opened 13 years earlier with 18 students in pre-k and kindergarten classes, had grown to almost 300 in pre-K through 12th grade. Started in rooms rented from Taylor Road Synagogue, the modern Orthodox day school has now filled its home in the former Northwood School building in University Heights.
By the time it graduated its first high school class, Mizrachi had a chartered chapter of the National Honor Society and been awarded the Jerusalem Prize, presented biennially to only two schools worldwide. Most members of the first graduating class spent a postgraduate year in Israeli seminaries and yeshivot, then returned to American colleges and universities.
On Friday afternoon, June 9, Fuchs Mizrachi School (the name has changed slightly to reflect a benefactor) will launch its first alumni reunion weekend with a school tour. The next day, Rabbi Alan Berkowitz, headmaster of New York City’s Ramaz Lower School and former assistant educational director of Fuchs Mizrachi, will be the guest speaker at a festive luncheon.
At a melave malke (Saturday night gathering) there will be videos of alumni who have made aliyah, many serving proudly in the Israeli army. Graduation ceremonies for the class of 2006 will be held Sunday morning. Completing a cycle, the class of ’96 will gather that evening for a 10th anniversary barbecue.
Organizer of the reunion weekend and head of the FMS Va’ad Habogrim (alumni association), Matthew Wieder, hopes the weekend will make former students feel welcome. It will also give Mizrachi’s educators a chance to see the kinds of individuals their efforts have produced.
Wieder, who spent a year-and-a-half studying in Israel after high school, and received his bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania, is a good example. He has been living in Beachwood for the past year with his wife Devorah, a busy Ob/gyn resident, and their two small children. A senior software engineer with the Satori Group, Wieder also makes time to teach an early morning Gemarah class at the Fuchs Mizrachi/Torat Tzion Kollel. “Being in the first class at Mizrachi gave us a measure of input into the school and taught us to take leadership roles in whatever we do,” he says.
Devorah (Pomerantz) Goldstein, valedictorian of the class of ’96, agrees. “We had really close relationships with our peers and our teachers because we were such a small group.”
Goldstein, who studied in Israel, then at Cleveland State University and Wheelock College in Boston, is a certified child-life specialist. Married in November 2001, she and her husband met in Miami, moved to Denver, “just because we wanted to try it,” then headed back east to Pittsburgh, where she works on special projects at the University of Pittsburgh Institutional Review Board; her husband is receiving his MBA degree from Carnegie-Mellon.
Soon, her husband’s job will take the couple, expecting their first child in August, to San Antonio. Whenever they move to a new community, Goldstein says, her first step is to “check us out the shul, so we move nearby.”
Dov Pickholtz, also class of ’96, says during his year in Israel he enjoyed the kindness of several Mizrachi families who had previously moved there. (Mizrachi families joke that the school’s enrollment would number many additional students if the Zionist school were not so successful in fostering aliyah!)
While attending Yeshiva University in New York City, Pickholtz founded an a capella group, and performed in arts festivals on guitar. By the time he received his bachelor’s degree in psychology and an associate degree in Judaic studies, Pickholtz had married the former Tammy Schwartz, whom he met while working as a sound engineer for a Jewish band. The Pickholtzes are the parents of two daughters.
Since college, Pickholtz has held a variety of jobs in medical research and completed his first two years of medical school at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine. Commissioned as a second lieutenant in the US Army, he expects to begin clinical work this July at Lutheran Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Rachelle (Cik) Lewinger spent her post-Mizrachi year in Israel, then attended Boston University where she met her husband, an entrepreneur. Upon graduation from the University of Miami with a degree in business management, Lewinger began classes in interior design. Currently living in Florida, where she is taking a career break to raise her two young daughters, Lewinger says Fuchs Mizrachi gave her “a good foundation for who I want to be. The kind of community and school I want for my family is like what I had.”
In June 2004, Alan Hollender, salutatorian of the class of ’96, received smichah (rabbinic ordination) from Yeshiva Chovevei Torah, a “modern and open Orthodox institution” of advanced Torah study. Hollender, who found his year of Israeli study at Yeshivat Har Etzion intellectually intensive, says the beautiful thing about the rabbinate is interacting with people on different levels. “I may be learning one-on-one with someone; that may lead to personal discussions. Then I might be asked to officiate at their life-cycle event.”
Hollender has served as a rabbinic intern, then an assistant rabbi in the New York area, and he expects to become rabbi of his own congregation this summer. There are similarities, he says, between his ongoing job as a teaching fellow at SAR Academy, a Modern Orthodox high school in Riverdale, N.Y., and those of the fellows who study and teach in Fuchs Mizrachi’s Torat Tzion Kollel. “Periodically, we get together to learn Judaic subjects with groups of five or six kids. No grades, no pressure, just a very positive interaction.”
As these and other alumni demonstrate, Fuchs Mizrach School, with a current enrollment of 387 students and poised to build a state of the art new campus in Beachwood, has much to celebrate.
 |
 |
|
| The best orange juice...and a lifetime of memories from Israel | Even little things make me feel connected to Israel |
Article Rating
Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of clevelandjewishnews.com.
You must register with a valid email to post comments. Only your Member ID will be posted with the comments. Registration is free.
Registered users sign in here: |
Become a Registered User |
