Torah Academy of Bergen County
Encyclopedia
Torah Academy of Bergen County is a four-year yeshiva
high school
located in Teaneck
, in Bergen County
, New Jersey
. It utilizes a split-schedule day offering both Jewish studies
and college preparatory
courses. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools
Commission on Secondary Schools since 2005.
TABC, as it is commonly known, is run by the Rosh Yeshiva
, Rabbi Yosef Adler (who is also the Rabbi of Congregation Rinat Yisrael in Teaneck, NJ), and the Principal of General Studies, Arthur Poleyeff. Also in the administration is Rabbi Ezra Wiener, the Mashgiach Ruchani
(Religious Life Guidance Counselor).
As of the 2009-10 school year, the school had an enrollment of 246 students and 24.3 classroom teachers (on an FTE
basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 10.1.
In 2005, the school was accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools
. Some of the undergraduate colleges that TABC students have been accepted to include Boston College
, Brandeis University
, Columbia University
, Cooper Union
, Cornell University
, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
, University of Maryland, College Park
, New York University
, Princeton University
, Queens College, Rutgers University
, University of Pennsylvania
and Yeshiva University
.
, AP Physics B
, AP Physics C
, AP Calculus AB and BC
, AP Computers A and AB
, AP United States History
, AP English Literature and Composition
, AP English Language and Composition
, CL Jewish History, AP Psychology
, AP Biology
, and AP Statistics
. Most of these are only primarily offered to juniors and seniors.
Each year more than 91% of the Senior class decides to study for a year or two in Yeshiva
in Israel
before beginning college.
The school is additionally noted for its intense culinary arts seniors elective for, thought to be the first of its type for a mainstream boys yeshiva high school.
The school hosts a program of the SINAI Special Needs Institute
, an organization dedicated to serving both the educational, psychological and emotional needs of Jewish children and young adults. The program serves children of below to above average intelligence with different degrees of learning disability and a wide variety of behavioral characteristics, whose needs could not be addressed by traditional Jewish day school programs and curricula.
team was the 2005 New Jersey State Champions and received a lot of press coverage both in the Tri-State Region as well as overseas for its efforts to gain accommodations to participate in the National High School Mock Trial Championship
in Charlotte, North Carolina
without being required to compete during the Jewish Sabbath.
The Torah Bowl team won its first league championship in the 2004-05 school year, and won division titles in 2008-09 and 2009-10. The Science Olympiad
team won the tournament the first two times it competed, in the 2003-04 and 2004-05 school years. After much controversy, the team was awarded first-place in the 2007-08 competition as well. The Olympiad team won again in 2010 and 2011, with Yakir Forman collecting 8 medals and Avi Ennis as the team mascot. Chess and College Bowl, in which TABC has won three consecutive JV and two straight varsity championships, are other popular activities - in 2011, led by captains Gavi Dov Hochsztein and Yakir Forman, TABC got 2nd place in the Yeshiva Chess League.
The school also publishes several publications that are distributed to synagogues and institutions mostly within the New York
/ New Jersey
/ Connecticut
Tri-State Region. These include Kol Torah, the school's weekly Torah
publication, and Israel Report, a weekly collection of news items relating to Israel
.
Additionally, the school has a student run Video Publication known as TABC TV which videos and photographs most school functions, along with producing special original videos for various purposes such as the honoring of a teacher.
TABC's chemistry and physics teacher, Joel Berman, and its computer science teacher, Glen Marianko, run a summer science program for boys and girls in its computer and chemistry/physics labs. Also, both floor hockey teams run a little-league floor hockey league for boys from grades 4-8. Each summer, Rabbi Howard Jachter
also runs a 1-week program for high school boys in which they learn a book of Tanach
in depth.
The school also had a noted Model United Nations
team which participates in the competition run by Yeshiva University
competing against Jewish day schools from all over the United States.
The school also has both JV and varsity college bowl which won there respective championships last year.
In an effort to build inter-community relationships in Teaneck, Torah Academy athletic director Bobby Kaplan and assistant principal Rabbi Tzvi Grumet, arranged for the TABC Storm to play a pair of exhibition basketball games in 2000 against the Knights of the Al-Ghazaly High School
, a Muslim high school in the township.
In the 2006-07 season, the Varsity Floor Hockey team, coached by Mo Fuchs, went undefeated (17-0) beating the Davis Renov Stahler
in the championship game 3-1.
In the 2007-08 season the Varsity Floor Hockey team beat Davis Renov Stahler 2-1 in double overtime to claim the yeshiva league floor hockey championship for the second year in a row.
In the 2008-09 season the Junior Varsity Floor Hockey team beat Davis Renov Stahler 3-0 to capture the yeshiva league floor hockey championship.
In the 2009-10 season, both floor hockey teams made it to the championship game, with the JV team defeating Davis Renov Stahler 3-2 in overtime and the varsity team losing to DRS by a 2-1 score.
In the 2010-11 season, the JV Hockey team won the MYHSHL championship for the third year in a row, defeating the Rambam Mesivta
Ravens in the final by a score of 2-0. The MVP of that game was MYHSHL all-star Benjy Shulman.
TABC's largest sports program is the wrestling team which had placed 3rd in the Wittenberg Championships from 2007 to 2010. In 2009, TABC had six finalists and two champions. In 2010, TABC had three champions - Navid Ahdoot (112 lbs), Evan Friedlander (171 lbs) and Dovid Greenfield (285 lbs) - as well as several second and third place wrestlers. In 2011 TABC placed second overall with three first place winners including Shimmy Auman, Evan Friedlander, Dovid Greenfield. TABC wrestlers Efraim Ellman, Ramin Ahdoot and Lior Shachar have been inducted into the Wittenberg Hall of Fame.
Additionally, the school also has both a varsity and junior varsity basketball team coached by Yeshiva League Hall of Fame Coach Bobby Kaplan.
The Yeshiva University
Red Sarachek basketball tournament plays some of its games in the TABC gym, for which they got an award in 2004.
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
high school
Secondary education in the United States
In most jurisdictions, secondary education in the United States refers to the last six or seven years of statutory formal education. Secondary education is generally split between junior high school or middle school, usually beginning with sixth or seventh grade , and high school, beginning with...
located in Teaneck
Teaneck, New Jersey
Teaneck is a township in Bergen County, New Jersey, and a suburb in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 39,776, making it the second-most populous among the 70 municipalities in Bergen County....
, in Bergen County
Bergen County, New Jersey
Bergen County is the most populous county of the state of New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 905,116. The county is part of the New York City Metropolitan Area. Its county seat is Hackensack...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. It utilizes a split-schedule day offering both Jewish studies
Jewish studies
Jewish studies is an academic discipline centered on the study of Jews and Judaism. Jewish studies is interdisciplinary and combines aspects of history , religious studies, archeology, sociology, languages , political science, area studies, women's studies, and ethnic studies...
and college preparatory
University-preparatory school
A university-preparatory school or college-preparatory school is a secondary school, usually private, designed to prepare students for a college or university education...
courses. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools
Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools
The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools is a voluntary, peer-based, non-profit association dedicated to educational excellence and improvement through peer evaluation and accreditation...
Commission on Secondary Schools since 2005.
TABC, as it is commonly known, is run by the Rosh Yeshiva
Rosh yeshiva
Rosh yeshiva, , , is the title given to the dean of a Talmudical academy . It is made up of the Hebrew words rosh — meaning head, and yeshiva — a school of religious Jewish education...
, Rabbi Yosef Adler (who is also the Rabbi of Congregation Rinat Yisrael in Teaneck, NJ), and the Principal of General Studies, Arthur Poleyeff. Also in the administration is Rabbi Ezra Wiener, the Mashgiach Ruchani
Mashgiach ruchani
Mashgiach ruchani or mashgiach for short, means a spiritual supervisor or guide. It is a title which usually refers to a rabbi who has an official position within a yeshiva and is responsible for the non-academic areas of yeshiva students' lives.The position of mashgiach ruchani arose with the...
(Religious Life Guidance Counselor).
As of the 2009-10 school year, the school had an enrollment of 246 students and 24.3 classroom teachers (on an FTE
Full-time equivalent
Full-time equivalent , is a unit to measure employed persons or students in a way that makes them comparable although they may work or study a different number of hours per week. FTE is often used to measure a worker's involvement in a project, or to track cost reductions in an organization...
basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 10.1.
In 2005, the school was accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools
Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools
The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools is a voluntary, peer-based, non-profit association dedicated to educational excellence and improvement through peer evaluation and accreditation...
. Some of the undergraduate colleges that TABC students have been accepted to include Boston College
Boston College
Boston College is a private Jesuit research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. The main campus is bisected by the border between the cities of Boston and Newton. It has 9,200 full-time undergraduates and 4,000 graduate students. Its name reflects its early...
, Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
, Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Cooper Union
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...
, Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
, University of Maryland, College Park
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
, New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Queens College, Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
, University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
and Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...
.
Academic programs
The Advanced Placement (AP) courses offered are: AP ChemistryAP Chemistry
Advanced Placement Chemistry is a course and examination offered by the College Board as a part of the Advanced Placement Program to give American and Canadian high school students the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities and earn college-level credit.-The course:AP Chemistry is a course...
, AP Physics B
AP Physics B
AP Physics B is an Advanced Placement science course that is divided into nine different sections: Newtonian Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, Fluid Mechanics and Thermal Physics, Waves and Optics, and Atomic and Nuclear Physics. The course is equivalent to a one-year college course that...
, AP Physics C
AP Physics C
Part of the College Board's Advanced Placement Program, consisting of two separate courses:*AP Physics C: Mechanics*AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism...
, AP Calculus AB and BC
AP Calculus
Advanced Placement Calculus is used to indicate one of two distinct Advanced Placement courses and examinations offered by the College Board, AP Calculus AB and AP Calculus BC....
, AP Computers A and AB
AP Computer Science
Advanced Placement Computer Science is the name of two distinct Advanced Placement courses and examinations offered by the College Board to high school students as an opportunity to earn college credit for a college-level computer science course...
, AP United States History
AP United States History
Advanced Placement United States History is a course and examination offered by the College Board as part of the Advanced Placement Program...
, AP English Literature and Composition
AP English Literature and Composition
Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition is a course and examination offered by the College Board as part of the Advanced Placement Program.-The Course:This course is designated for motivated students with a command of standard English, an...
, AP English Language and Composition
AP English Language and Composition
Advanced Placement English Language and Composition is a course and examination offered by the College Board as part of the Advanced Placement Program....
, CL Jewish History, AP Psychology
AP Psychology
The Advanced Placement Psychology course and corresponding exam is part of the College Board's Advanced Placement Program. This course is tailored for students interested in the field of psychology and as an opportunity to earn placement credit or exemption from a college-level psychology course...
, AP Biology
AP Biology
In the United States, Advanced Placement Biology , is a course and examination offered by the College Board to high school students as an opportunity to earn placement credit for a college-level biology course....
, and AP Statistics
AP Statistics
Advanced Placement Statistics is a college-level high school statistics course offered in the United States through the College Board's Advanced Placement program...
. Most of these are only primarily offered to juniors and seniors.
Each year more than 91% of the Senior class decides to study for a year or two in Yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
before beginning college.
The school is additionally noted for its intense culinary arts seniors elective for, thought to be the first of its type for a mainstream boys yeshiva high school.
The school hosts a program of the SINAI Special Needs Institute
SINAI Special Needs Institute
SINAI Schools is an organization based in the New York Metropolitan area that provides education for Jewish children and young adults with special needs. SINAI is the only Jewish day school for children with special needs that has received the coveted accreditation from the Middle States...
, an organization dedicated to serving both the educational, psychological and emotional needs of Jewish children and young adults. The program serves children of below to above average intelligence with different degrees of learning disability and a wide variety of behavioral characteristics, whose needs could not be addressed by traditional Jewish day school programs and curricula.
Extracurricular activities
The school has a number of extracurricular activities, some that do well even on the international level. The school's Mock trialMock trial
A Mock Trial is an act or imitation trial. It is similar to a moot court, but mock trials simulate lower-court trials, while moot court simulates appellate court hearings. Attorneys preparing for a real trial might use a mock trial consisting of volunteers as role players to test theories or...
team was the 2005 New Jersey State Champions and received a lot of press coverage both in the Tri-State Region as well as overseas for its efforts to gain accommodations to participate in the National High School Mock Trial Championship
National High School Mock Trial Championship
The National High School Mock Trial Championship is an American nationwide competition of high school mock trial teams. The competition debuted in 1984 in Des Moines, Iowa, with teams representing Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin....
in Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the seat of Mecklenburg County. In 2010, Charlotte's population according to the US Census Bureau was 731,424, making it the 17th largest city in the United States based on population. The Charlotte metropolitan area had a 2009...
without being required to compete during the Jewish Sabbath.
The Torah Bowl team won its first league championship in the 2004-05 school year, and won division titles in 2008-09 and 2009-10. The Science Olympiad
Science Olympiad
Science Olympiad is an American elementary, middle, or high school team competition which tests knowledge of various science topics and engineering ability. Over 6,200 teams from 49 U.S. states compete each year. Most teams compete in three levels of competition: regionals, states, and nationals...
team won the tournament the first two times it competed, in the 2003-04 and 2004-05 school years. After much controversy, the team was awarded first-place in the 2007-08 competition as well. The Olympiad team won again in 2010 and 2011, with Yakir Forman collecting 8 medals and Avi Ennis as the team mascot. Chess and College Bowl, in which TABC has won three consecutive JV and two straight varsity championships, are other popular activities - in 2011, led by captains Gavi Dov Hochsztein and Yakir Forman, TABC got 2nd place in the Yeshiva Chess League.
The school also publishes several publications that are distributed to synagogues and institutions mostly within the New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
/ New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
/ Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
Tri-State Region. These include Kol Torah, the school's weekly Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
publication, and Israel Report, a weekly collection of news items relating to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
.
Additionally, the school has a student run Video Publication known as TABC TV which videos and photographs most school functions, along with producing special original videos for various purposes such as the honoring of a teacher.
TABC's chemistry and physics teacher, Joel Berman, and its computer science teacher, Glen Marianko, run a summer science program for boys and girls in its computer and chemistry/physics labs. Also, both floor hockey teams run a little-league floor hockey league for boys from grades 4-8. Each summer, Rabbi Howard Jachter
Howard Jachter
Howard Jachter is a prominent rabbi on the Rabbinical Council of America . He is also a teacher at the Torah Academy of Bergen County. He is well-known for his articles in TABC's weekly Torah Publication, Kol Torah, many of which form the base of his books Gray Matter, Gray Matter 2, and Gray...
also runs a 1-week program for high school boys in which they learn a book of Tanach
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
in depth.
The school also had a noted Model United Nations
Model United Nations
Model United Nations is an academic simulation of the United Nations that aims to educate participants about current events, topics in international relations, diplomacy and the United Nations agenda....
team which participates in the competition run by Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...
competing against Jewish day schools from all over the United States.
The school also has both JV and varsity college bowl which won there respective championships last year.
Athletics
Some other sport teams that TABC has include: Baseball, Softball, JV and Varsity Soccer, Ping-Pong, Tennis, Volley Ball, and a champion bowling team.In an effort to build inter-community relationships in Teaneck, Torah Academy athletic director Bobby Kaplan and assistant principal Rabbi Tzvi Grumet, arranged for the TABC Storm to play a pair of exhibition basketball games in 2000 against the Knights of the Al-Ghazaly High School
Al-Ghazaly High School
Al-Ghazaly High School in Teaneck, New Jersey is notable as one of the oldest Islamic High Schools in the United States, being founded in 1984. The school serves 7th to 12th grade. Sr. Fatina Hanini is the current principal and Sr. Khaldiya Mustafa is the Vice Principal and Guidance Counselor...
, a Muslim high school in the township.
In the 2006-07 season, the Varsity Floor Hockey team, coached by Mo Fuchs, went undefeated (17-0) beating the Davis Renov Stahler
Hebrew Academy of Long Beach
Hebrew Academy of Long Beach is a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school located in Long Beach, in southwestern Nassau County, on the South Shore of Long Island in New York.It contains four schools:...
in the championship game 3-1.
In the 2007-08 season the Varsity Floor Hockey team beat Davis Renov Stahler 2-1 in double overtime to claim the yeshiva league floor hockey championship for the second year in a row.
In the 2008-09 season the Junior Varsity Floor Hockey team beat Davis Renov Stahler 3-0 to capture the yeshiva league floor hockey championship.
In the 2009-10 season, both floor hockey teams made it to the championship game, with the JV team defeating Davis Renov Stahler 3-2 in overtime and the varsity team losing to DRS by a 2-1 score.
In the 2010-11 season, the JV Hockey team won the MYHSHL championship for the third year in a row, defeating the Rambam Mesivta
Rambam Mesivta
Rambam Mesivta is a private Jewish school in Lawrence, New York. Rambam is a highly politically active school and is known for having major pro-Israel rallies, events, and functions...
Ravens in the final by a score of 2-0. The MVP of that game was MYHSHL all-star Benjy Shulman.
TABC's largest sports program is the wrestling team which had placed 3rd in the Wittenberg Championships from 2007 to 2010. In 2009, TABC had six finalists and two champions. In 2010, TABC had three champions - Navid Ahdoot (112 lbs), Evan Friedlander (171 lbs) and Dovid Greenfield (285 lbs) - as well as several second and third place wrestlers. In 2011 TABC placed second overall with three first place winners including Shimmy Auman, Evan Friedlander, Dovid Greenfield. TABC wrestlers Efraim Ellman, Ramin Ahdoot and Lior Shachar have been inducted into the Wittenberg Hall of Fame.
Additionally, the school also has both a varsity and junior varsity basketball team coached by Yeshiva League Hall of Fame Coach Bobby Kaplan.
The Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...
Red Sarachek basketball tournament plays some of its games in the TABC gym, for which they got an award in 2004.