Ep. 42: Rabbi Yossi Rosenblum of Yeshiva Schools

So many twists and turns. And we've been telling our fabulous 50 Summer Stories of Pittsburgh Tech. This is Jonathan Kersting hanging out with Comcast to bring you these stories. We're getting late into the summer, but the stories, they just keep getting better and better and they're getting more and more tied into the community, which has me so excited. And today I have the honor and privilege of talking to Rabbi Yossi Rosenblum from Yeshiva Schools starting there as the new CEO beginning September one. So cool to hear about how they're using technology in tradition, to educate children and get them up to speed with All Things tech. Rabbi, so excited to talk to you today. Thanks for taking the time. It's such an honor to talk to

you. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad that the to share our story.

Absolutely is Yeah, I get really pumped up. I love it when I see techno being embraced, you know, with good with faith and with no children and in education because it all kind of brings the life together in a certain sort of way to say everything can kind of bolster everything up and make it better. I think that's the case of wiki Shiva, which is really great. School in squirrel Hill. I mean, it's really foundational to the community one of the pieces of bedrock in squirrel hill there as far as that goes and so exciting that you'll be the new CEO September one's just a few more days, isn't it? It's a great time to be a CEO.

We have it under control everything that we can have under control. For the rest, we rely on God. The situation is very fluid, as it is for everybody, but we're trying to stay calm and forward looking. Absolutely. I think that's a great attitude to take, and that's going to take you very far. So probably kind of kick things off. You got such a cool background. You've been part of some really cool things within education. Tell us about about yourself, Bradley.

So first of all, I am born in Pittsburgh born and squirrel Hill.

All right,  I actually attended Yeshiva Schools as a student. I'm a graduate of Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh. Very cool. It was much smaller back then, smaller classes. We were located on the fifth on Fifth Avenue. So I grew up in this in this community, went on to New York, spent some time in Johannesburg, South Africa, and actually spent some time in the former Soviet Union before they opened up and taught some of the refuseniks they were called underground. These were individuals who had applied to leave Russia, the former Soviet Union, Israel or the United States. And that wasn't appropriate for them. They lost their jobs and everything they were trying to keep the spark of Judaism alive there and I went there teaching and interacting with them. And yes, I've been around here in the areas that I mean, talk about some perspective. You Part of something like that, that is just amazing. That's just got to give you some insight that you're not going to get anyplace else. Yeah, definitely. That definitely was an experience that I reflect back on regularly. And I, I tell my kids, I tell the students in school stories from my experiences, they were actually arrested to be honest with you. Yeah, that's not part of today's schedule. Today story, but for another time, but you're interacting with with these refuseniks of teaching and things of that nature, they weren't happy with us being there at the time, but I believe it No, no, that's, that's some good work going on right there. So awesome level set with us on your Shiva and what it's up to. I know it's grown quite a bit and give us kind of you over you the nickel tour if you could kind of jump into your new leadership there. Yes, he she was a she has been in business for 75 years. Presently, we have actually two but for COVID. We have three buildings in squirrel Hill, K through preschool actually, too. year olds through high school or high school and a girl school separate. We have a total of 450 children in our schools. Like I said, traditionally we're in two schools this year we have to expand to third school, felt it was safer and we're able to protect the children and ensure that the state guidelines were able to be kept in place as far as distancing and things of that nature. We run out we have a dual curriculum we have a true you know, General Studies curriculum English, math, science, social studies that we just got accredited by Middle States. Last year, our elementary schools just accredited last year went through the accreditation process. So our regular general studies are similar to what you'd find in any school, any quality school, and in addition, we have our Judaic part of the day, which we study, Bible, Talmud, which is Jewish law philosophy, and they're blended into To one fascinating program, so long schedule for the students. Yeah, that's fundamental. That is right. I mean, at the end of the day, you're just getting solid education and you're getting that grounded in religion. And I just think that's so cool. And you're doing that obviously right there in the heart of squirrel Hill. As far as that goes important, 50 students, a lot of children right there, that's very cool.

Each one is entrusted to us by God.

Each one is important. And we strive to make each one of them successful. I use the word strive because it's, you know, ongoing, ongoing and reflective regularly but you know, talking about no steeped in tradition and Judaic, you know, I shared with the students that I pulled up a book from written Jewish law over 100 years ago, he talks about living through a pandemic and the rabbi right here that in Hebrew, of course, that you should Don't leave your house. But if you do leave your house, make sure to use a piece of cloth and cover your mouth and nose. Talking about like the effect of masks aren't like aren't new know, that respond to a pandemic is you know, is steeped in our traditions actually well well before 100 years ago, but it's one source.

Well, that's kind of interesting. It's not not something that's new.

Absolutely. So tell me, tell me what was it that attracted you to say you want to take on the helm there at Yeshiva that's quite the responsibility. You didn't take lightly I'm assuming?

Yeah, Yeshiva schools just went through a process of strategic planning. We it was named syntagma, which means standing together. Over 100 parents participated with our administration and our staff under the guidance of Dr. George Szymanski who does this work. former superintendent here in Pittsburgh and he led us through a process over A year and we identified 109 I think action plans to plan and to plot the Shiva of the future. Okay. And part of that process, I think, the, you know, the idea that I would serve in the capacity of CEO came into being I remember Rosenfeld, who had run the school for many years, right, asked me if I would do that. What I think what I'm excited about is, you know, up until now, I was involved in the educational part of things, which is my passion and my background. And when I think about day and night, the ability, however, to be able to think big and to reach out to donors into supporters and yeshiva and to sell my vision, my educational vision, sort of bring the two worlds together, right? Because the business we're in is an education, that the talk about, you know, our vision and to talk about syntagma from the perspective of educate You know what was important, I think and that's what I'm excited about. You Shiva needs to invest in providing the absolute best education that we can to our students to prepare them, you know, for the future.

So tell me about this vision. I'm just so curious, like, tell you what, what, what are the main points? And, you know, I'm really curious to know how technology can play a role in that, especially with COVID being the way it is, you don't know when people are going to be learning from a distance of course, so give me more please. Right. So just an interesting way. Cool. Sorry. Let me I just knocked over my green screen. Hold on. You can pull it right back up. Yeah. You're back in business.

We'll make sure it doesn't fall again. That might be our first zoom casualty ever. So it's all good. We're glad you're in one piece. Okay.

Shortly, surely. Oh. I'm just a Talk a little bit about technology and tradition for a moment. You know, I mentioned to you earlier that it's the best of times and the worst of times, but the best of times, the worst of times because we're living through challenging, challenging and difficult times. But it's the best of times because when we're put through a challenge, as the leader of organization, Rabbi snares in the labovick, treba, a blessing memory always told us that, you know, he always saw opportunities for hope. Yeah, well, yeah. You know, when things seem challenging and helpless, so he always encouraged us to see the silver lining in situations which we find ourselves in. And, you know, people when they're in a challenging situation, they're number one, they band together. They become more creative. The challenge sort of spurs them on, to do things and to come up with ideas. They never they've never come up with before. So just to reflect a little bit about you know, to commit For a moment, you know, so we came up in our reopening plan, which is you know, 10 parent 10 administrators, you know, with various committees, lawyers and doctors and their board and parents and everything we came up with this plan, which, you know, one three different plans brick to click, click to brick, all sorts of, you know, starting in the building and having opportunities to, to bring kids kids in, online, virtually, which is, by the way, the way we're starting, we plan on August 31, to have most of our children and one of our three buildings, but at the same time, we're creating zoom rooms, so students who are not comfortable joining online, excuse me joining in the building can join virtually. So this started off as sort of, you know, the necessity, you know, pushed us to come up with this creative idea of a hybrid of a teacher teaching in the class or bringing kids in online. But as we move forward, I see this as being special. future of education, be able to use that hybrid plan being able us to use technology to bring more children into the classroom, possibly to bring teachers from other countries into our classroom, to have students from other countries in our classroom and better technology to reach more children provide better education. So with what started off as a necessity has become part of the vision of the future. So we could be teaching the text that's 1000 years old or 2000 years old, using modern technology to sort of bring it together. We had it we had a virtual dinner last night. Okay. We brought in a priest, a performer from Johannesburg, South Africa, welcome, walk in the morning. But at the same time, a group of our parents delivered a warm kosher meal All participants in this virtual dinner so they're a part of the dinner, they're able to say a little, you know, Hi, I'm on the wine, bringing two worlds together. But using technology to us that's that's part of the vision. And I think part of the vision as well is striving for excellence. Strive. It's a religious obligation to strive for excellence. Both in our job in our General Studies program in our Judaic program, we want students to be immersed and well versed in their history and their tradition in the Bible, as well as we want to educate them so that they can provide, you know, come up with a career and and provide for their families.

I mean, you're just showing right now how you're making something very positive out of what was a very negative situation. That's fantastic. And using technology to do that. Can you tell me more about like some of the curriculum and how you're preparing kids for a careers like in technology or getting them interested in the steam and STEM fields and so forth.

So, the last interesting the last few years, we had a we had a, we created this comp stem competition or steam competition with two other local Jewish day schools. This year, it's going to be a little bit more complicated. And we had the teams actually in elementary school and middle school, work the entire year and come up with presentations. You know, and they competed and it was a fascinating experience for sure. As far as as far as careers, you know, we provide or we strive to provide a very, very solid, General Studies, curriculum and education. There aren't that we're looking to also include options for students to specialize Or in one particular area to give them options particularly in the high school middle school and the high school AP courses and and other opportunities for them to to spend more time and energy focused on one area of their education that they assume that they want to pursue. Um, but I think it's a lot. A lot of education today is teaching children to think teaching children to ask good questions, and to probe. That's the foundation right there. You know, I'm saying that in essence, teaching children essential questions, enduring understandings, getting them to be reflective, and to think about things because, you know, we live in a fast changing world. And you know, what, works today doesn't necessarily work for tomorrow. I think. I think getting to Children to reflect on how we readjusted our school during since March, is really helpful to them to understand that, you know, you constantly need to reinvent yourself as life changes, and technology changes and things of that nature. So these are long, long answers, but I hope I address your your answer.

And they're they're fantastic answers. This is just the things that I love being able to hear that this is what's going on in our community. And to know that you Shiva is playing such a huge part in that and you're the new leader of it right now as I think it's just so exciting. And I just think nothing but great things are gonna be happening with what you're talking about, and really can't thank you enough telling me more about this and our listeners and our viewers about all this because just goes to show you man technology is helping everybody out. And Pittsburgh is an awesome place. And Rabbi, You are making Pittsburgh an awesome place. It's just as simple as that. I can't thank you enough for being part of our conversation today.

Thank you. I would add that I think what's on all our minds right now in much of our discussion of professional Development this week at yeshiva is to make sure that we're taking care of the social emotional needs of the children. Something I told our staff this morning was that you know, this first couple weeks of school is not about making up last, you know, work last year. It's not about rigor this week, this these next couple weeks, it's about ensuring that the children's social and emotional and psychological health and adults everybody and we all need to kind of ramp into this thing a little bit.

That's that's we primarily have to focus on and then we'll worry about the academics just a little later once the kids are comfortable and happy and then you know, and in a good place, Rabbi Rosenblum You are the best I just like a blast of positive energy, just what I needed today. I know our listeners and viewers are getting that same vibe right off of it. Thanks again for being part of you very much. Have a great day. You do the same thing. Okay, bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai