Dear Families:

Greetings from an Ezra Academy alumnus! Years before I became Ezra’s head of school, my Ezra journey began when I joined my older sister as an Ezra pupil (our youngest sister would follow a couple years later). Since first grade, I have been on an amazing journey—as a student, then, after college, as a teacher at a Jewish Montessori school, and today as Ezra’s head of school. Coming home, helping pass on the Ezra education to your children, is a great privilege.

Ezra instilled in me curiosity and an excitement for learning. To this day, I think back to particular teachers and assignments. In those days, terms like “project-based learning” were less commonly used, but they were already the essence of what Ezra did. We also got out of the building and into the community; to this day I remember class trips to the Native American museum in Washington, Conn., and Humphrey’s House in Ansonia, Conn., where we learned about colonial life.

When I became a teacher, I used those experiences to guide me. And as I prepare my faculty to continue teaching traditional subjects in a refreshed way, those experiences are very much alive for me.

People ask me, “What’s the same, and what’s changed?” Then as now, Ezra was religiously diverse. My graduating eighth-grade class represented every synagogue from the surrounding area, as well as kids from no synagogue. We had kids who observed the Sabbath strictly, and those who didn’t at all. The spirit of pluralism is a real strength, and it’s been at Ezra all along. We have a huge diversity of experience, and there is no stigma around difference. Instead, there is curiosity.

What’s changed is the society around us, which has become so polarized and politicized. In such an era, it’s wonderful for our students to see difference as something holy. Differences of all kinds: in learning styles, in politics, in religious observance.

I come to Ezra as an alumnus, as an experienced classroom teacher (of history, Judaic studies, and civics), as a New Haven native, as the father of a toddler (there is now a new baby, too), and as passionate musician (ukulele, guitar, and mandolin—my drums and piano are coming along slowly). But most of all, I come as somebody passionate about creating a joyfully Jewish school, where your child will learn academics but, more important, the values and ethics that are our heritage. I hope you’ll come meet us to learn more.

B’shalom,
Tani