"You look just like your mother," she said to me in amazement. I didn't recognize her at all in her beautifully coiffed wig. It took me a while to identify most of the women there.

The fourteen ladies who assembled in the Jerusalem restaurant that July evening represented a quarter of my graduating class of l958 from the Shulamith School for Girls in Brooklyn—those who had made aliyah, sans one.  A few had been in Israel since before the Six Day War, others had come during the next thirty years, and a few had come only in the recent past, following their children. It was our first reunion in 51 years, and, as one classmate remarked, it looked as if we had sent our mothers.

Memorabilia were posted on a board or placed on a table below it: class and graduation pictures, our graduation cantata, The Promised Land, by Julius Chajes, our yearbook, autograph albums, a G.O. pin, an article about our school, updates of those of us who appeared on the internet and a tribute to our deceased principal, Dr. Judith Lieberman, printed in an Israeli newspaper.

It was Dr. Lieberman and the Shulamith school that had contributed to our being there at all. As the daughter of Rabbi Meir Berlin (Bar Ilan), recognized world leader of the Mizrachi movement and after whom Bar Ilan University is named, Lieberman was greatly influenced by her father's commitment to Zionism. She was also influenced by her grandfather, the Natziv (Rabbi Naftali-Zvi Yehuda Berlin), the last Rosh Yeshiva

of Volozhin, and her grandmother who took complete charge of its finances.

Born in Latvia, Lieberman eventually reached the United States where she completed her first and second degrees, receiving her PhD from the University of Zurich. After living in Israel for eight years with her husband, the world-renowned rabbinic scholar and professor, Rabbi Shaul Lieberman, the two returned to the United States where she became principal of Shulamith, a post she held for thirty years.

Shulamith had been established in 1929 by Nacha Rivkin, an educator and an immigrant to the United States who settled with her husband and two children in Brooklyn. Since there were no Jewish girls' schools, Rifkin's daughter studied in a public school, and her mother taught her Hebrew and Jewish subjects at home. Rivkin was offered to help establish Shulamith School for Girls in Borough Park, Brooklyn. It was the first Jewish girls day school in North America.

Fifteen years previously, when Rabbi Meir Berlin arrived in the United States in l914, he wanted to give greater vibrancy and visibility to the Mizrachi movement by educating people in the way of the Torah, in observance of the mitzvot, in the knowledge of Hebrew language, and in the love of the land of Israel. At that time, Jewish parents sent their children to public schools in the morning and Talmud Torah in the afternoon. Bar Ilan believed that secular public school education would eventually lead to assimilation. The Mizrachi movement gave Bar Ilan the support he needed to form modern orthodox day schools with diversified Jewish learning and a general studies curriculum to rival neighborhood public schools. He established a teacher training program, later incorporated into Yeshiva University, which would supply the teachers he needed for the schools. The Shulamith School was a product of his efforts, offering secular subjects as well as stressing the importance of Hebraic—Ivrit B'Ivrit—education, intensive Bible instruction and teaching of Zionism and Israel.

The women who were seated around the table were examples of this education. Most sought higher education, and among us were lawyers, a librarian, a systems analyst, an archivist, University math and English instructors, a music teacher, an artist, business women, principals of schools, a head of a post office and a mother of 15. Many had their M.A. and a few had attained a PhD. Some continue working while others have retired. One is using her retirement as an opportunity to attain her PhD. Almost, if not all, continue to learn Jewish studies, either alone, in hevruta, or in organized groups. They also volunteer their time to charitable organizations, helping people, and extraordinary acts of chesed.

We spoke openly and frankly about our aspirations, achievements, disappointments and concerns, and the years seemed to melt away. We were a group of women with a common elementary school education, nurtured on the teachings of religious Zionism: Am Yisrael, B'Eretz Yisrael, Al Pi Torat Yisrael (the People of Israel, in the Land of Israel, living according to the Torah of Israel).  In l927, Rabbi Meir Bar Ilan made the then remarkable announcement that the Mizrachi movement would see the fruits of its labor not when most Jews were living in Eretz Yisrael, but when Judaism would be seen in most places or in the Land of Israel.

 

At a parallel class reunion which had taken place in Brooklyn a few months earlier, a former classmate wrote, "What a spectrum of life choices our classmates have made. A mosaic, in miniature, of the divergent paths of mid-20th century/early 21st century Jewish girls/women." Most students of the class of '58 chose to stay in the United States. But for those who came on aliyah, there is a special bond which joins us, for no matter what our accomplishments, our greatest achievement is having fulfilled the great mitzvah of living in Eretz Yisrael.

 

 

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Judy Shapiro

Judy Shapiro was born in New York City and raised in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Very active in the Zionist youth group Mizrachi Hatzair, known today as the youth section of Amit Women, she came on Aliy...
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