Hebrew Academy of San Francisco was a private
Jewish day school, operating in
San Francisco, California, from 1969 to 2016. It was founded by Rabbi Pinchas Lipner, and had the only Orthodox Jewish high school in San Francisco during that time. From 2005 onward it was known as Lisa Kampner Hebrew Academy.
History
In the late 1940s, a school named the San Francisco Hebrew Academy was founded by Rabbi Bernard Marton.[1] It closed a few years later.[2]
Rabbi Pinchas Lipner founded the day school in 1969 after moving to San Francisco from Chicago. The opening day enrollment was 53 students from nursery to third grade.[3] In 1970, enrollment reached 150 students up to fourth grade.[4] The school initially was on 26th Avenue in the
Richmond District, sharing its campus with Congregation Chevra Thilim. By 1983, enrollment was 180 students through tenth grade. A proposal was made to create a facility to accommodate 240 students through twelfth grade.[5]
In 1987, it moved to its own new building on 14th Avenue,[3] In 1987, Lipner was awarded the Jerusalem Prize from the Torah Education and Culture Department of the
World Zionist Organization for "building the academy virtually from the ground up and providing an important link with the state of Israel."[6] In 1990, it graduated its first high school senior class with 13 students.[7]
In 2005, the school was renamed the Lisa Kampner Hebrew Academy, after one of its major contributors, Stanley Kampner, had reported that his daughter Lisa, who was an alumna of the school, had died the previous year in her early thirties.[8][9]
In 2016, after Lipner retired and moved to Israel, the school closed down due to lack of funding. It was described as San Francisco's only Orthodox Jewish school,[10][11][12][13] and the building in 2018 was taken over by the Stratford Schools in Northern California.[14]
School structure and curriculum
The school provided a full Jewish and secular education to its students.[15] Many of those students were recent
immigrants from the Soviet Union,[16][17] and they received both
ESL training as well as significant scholarships.[18][19][20] Once the high school opened in 1986, it also offered dormitory service for out-of-town students, and hosted students from other cities in California, as well as Mexico and Panama.[21][22]
Activism
The Hebrew Academy encouraged strong support for Israel.[23] Many prominent politicians came to visit the school,[24] and the school regularly brought Israeli teachers, as well as representatives from the youth movement
Bnei Akiva,[25] to educate the students[26]
The Hebrew Academy struggled to get funding from local Jewish agencies. They challenged both the
Jewish Federation[35][36] and the
Koret Foundation for fair funding.[37][38] In 2002, Lipner and the school sued local philanthropist
Richard Goldman and the Jewish Federation over defamatory comments made by Goldman concerning him and the school. The libel suit was dismissed in 2004 as California's one-year
statute of limitations for libel had run out, as Goldman had made those comments in an interview in 1992 and which was posted to the
UC Berkeley Bancroft Library archives in 1993, "nine years before he filed suit", but was appealed in 2005,[37][38][39] and was eventually dismissed by the
state Supreme Court in 2007.[39][40][41] For the 2004-2005 school year, the school reported it had lost funding from the Koret Foundation of two scholarship positions without explanation.[37]
^"The board of directors of the Hebrew Academy is pleased to announce a forthcoming change in the name of the school to Lisa Kampner Hebrew Academy". J. The Jewish News of Northern California (Press release). January 14, 2005. p. 11a.
^"Yaacov Agam Archives". Engel Gallery. December 14, 2022. Bio, Teaching. Retrieved January 29, 2023. 1983 Hebrew Academy, San Francisco, California, USA
^Dimitropoulou, Alexandra (January 5, 2021).
"Alex Weinstein: From New Immigrant to Tech Juggernaut". CEO World magazine. Retrieved January 29, 2023. The family landed first in South Florida, and soon headed West to California. Weinstein would attend high school at the Hebrew Academy of San Francisco, graduating in 1992