{"id":37030,"date":"2021-06-11T01:56:19","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T08:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=37030"},"modified":"2021-06-10T17:49:32","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T00:49:32","slug":"leaving-one-home-for-another","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2021\/06\/11\/leaving-one-home-for-another\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaving one home for another"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rabbi Don and Meira Pacht with their children, left to right, Ora, Shimie, Shoshana and Aharon.\u00a0<\/strong>(photo from Pacht family)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very excited for this new adventure,\u201d said Vancouver Hebrew Academy\u2019s Rabbi Don Pacht of his family\u2019s impending move to New York City. \u201cBut Vancouver is a huge part of our lives and always will be a huge part of our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pacht has been head of school at VHA since 2004. On July 20, 7 p.m., the school will host the Virtual Garden Party, honouring Pacht and his wife Meira for their service to the community and in support of the school\u2019s Fortify Our Future campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cHebrew Academy is going to need the support of the community,\u201d Pacht said. \u201cAnd, as it goes through a leadership transition especially \u2026 we need to ensure they are fiscally stable.\u201d<\/p>\n

VHA has found a new head of school \u2013 Rabbi Barak Cohen, who will come here from St. Ives, Australia. \u201cHe used to live in Victoria,\u201d said Pacht, \u201cso he understands the West Coast of Canada as a community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cohen comes with much experience in Jewish day schools, added Pacht, who has known Cohen for many years. The two rabbis have been in touch \u201cin terms of passing the torch of the school,\u201d but there won\u2019t be a physical overlap. \u201cFor the next school year,\u201d said Pacht, \u201cI\u2019m going to remain connected as a consultant and available, essentially, for Rabbi Cohen, for the board, for anyone who needs whatever is still in my head and not on paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pacht and his family will be in Vancouver until late July. They came here from Rochester, N.Y., via Torah Umesorah, the National Society of Jewish Day Schools. When the organization suggested the position in Vancouver, Pacht was interested because his friend Rabbi Dovid Davidowitz had recently come to the city, along with Rabbi Noam Abramchik, to set up the Pacific Torah Institute (which left Vancouver in 2019, after 16 years of operations).<\/p>\n

Two aspects in particular of the city\u2019s Jewish community struck him.<\/p>\n

\u201cNumber one, there was a real growth-oriented spirit,\u201d he said. As well, he added, \u201cI think it is unique and special in the integration across the gamut of the community. You can live your entire life in New York City and never meet a Conservative Jew.\u201d But, in Vancouver, \u201cno one would think twice about attending Hebrew Academy\u2019s events even though they themselves are not Orthodox or families of Hebrew Academy and I wouldn\u2019t think twice about attending an event put on by another organization or school even though they\u2019re not my \u2018flavour\u2019 of Judaism.\u201d<\/p>\n

That everyone works together \u201cfor the cumulative benefit of the broader community was very, very impressive to us,\u201d said Pacht.<\/p>\n

When Pacht began his first year at VHA, there were more than 100 students. Currently, he said, enrolment is just under 100. He pointed to demographic changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the 17 years that I\u2019ve been here,\u201d he said, \u201cI would say we have been more successful over time in attracting a broader spectrum of families. But, we continue to lose Orthodox families in the community. There are rabbis who are leaving, or just families who have aged out of the school system. That\u2019s really what happened to PTI\u2026. All the pioneer families that helped establish the organization, all their boys went through and graduated and we weren\u2019t replacing them with new Orthodox families.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exodus worries him, he said, \u201cas someone who is concerned about the global Orthodox community and global growth of Torah and Judaism.\u201d But, with respect to VHA, he said he believes the school \u201cwill be just fine\u201d because it offers \u201ca product that is not available in any of the other schools\u2026. And, because it\u2019s something that can\u2019t be done anywhere else in Vancouver, Vancouver understands that we need it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, he said, if you\u2019re a Schara Tzedeck family, you know that, in order to have rabbinic leadership at the synagogue, you need Orthodox education in the community. Similarly, if you want Judaics teachers, even in non-Orthodox schools, you need to educate those leaders.<\/p>\n

When he first came to VHA, the school already had two portables and another was added. \u201cAt the height of our enrolment, we probably had 130 students in a facility that was really built for 60, and we accommodated them with three portables, and bursting at the seams,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was always the vision to find a more suitable home,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe started with trying to buy the property from the Vancouver School Board.\u201d While not successful in that effort, VHA did manage, a handful of years ago, to secure a 10-year lease from the school board. With that security, it launched a capital campaign to replace the portables and improve the property.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dream of being able to offer full-day daycare for 3- and 4-year-olds was finally realized a year-and-a-half ago, when we opened this new facility,\u201d said Pacht.<\/p>\n

Then COVID-19 hit. \u201cIt has been, without a doubt, the most difficult experience that any of our staff, myself included, can remember,\u201d he said. Part of that was because it entailed a whole type of education that no one had been trained for \u2013 remote learning \u2013 but also because everybody has been traumatized in some way by the pandemic and schools have had to deal with much of the fallout.<\/p>\n

VHA\u2019s relatively small size was an advantage in this instance, said Pacht. \u201cI think schools have been doing a phenomenal job overall, but it\u2019s easier when you only have two cohorts instead of eight cohorts.\u201d When students initially were permitted to attend school in-person again, for example, VHA could accommodate more of its student body within the capacity limits set by the government. Generally speaking, said Pacht, all of the students have since returned to the classroom.<\/p>\n

Of accomplishments during his tenure, Pacht pointed to the new building and other physical improvements to the school, \u201calong with the broader community profile. I think it\u2019s a fair statement to say that the number of people who are aware of Hebrew Academy, whether or not it\u2019s the school they send their kids or grandkids to, and the appreciation for Hebrew Academy, it has a very significant standing within the community\u2026. It allowed us to expand and it allowed us to have a successful capital campaign. And it allows us to maintain a school of excellence…. I can say without a doubt that the level of education at this school is really top-notch.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Pacht and his family are leaving the city, he said, \u201cThis is where our children grew up. This is home \u2013 when my kids talk about home, they\u2019re thinking Vancouver. We are leaving because an opportunity came up that we could just not say no to, and that is, I received an offer from a school in New York City that happens to be the elementary school that I graduated from \u2026 and it puts us in a neighbourhood where we are in walking distance to my parents, my children and my grandchildren.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Virtual Garden Party is free to attend, with donations welcome. To register, email office@vhebrewacademy.com<\/a> or call 604-266-1245.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rabbi Don and Meira Pacht with their children, left to right, Ora, Shimie, Shoshana and Aharon.\u00a0(photo from Pacht family) \u201cWe\u2019re very excited for this new adventure,\u201d said Vancouver Hebrew Academy\u2019s Rabbi Don Pacht of his family\u2019s impending move to New York City. \u201cBut Vancouver is a huge part of our lives and always will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37031,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9717,8426,20644,218,529,3332],"class_list":["post-37030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-coronavirus","tag-don-pacht","tag-education-covid-19","tag-judaism","tag-vancouver-hebrew-academy","tag-vha"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}