The Pleasantville Community Synagogue Religious School is a thriving community within a community. With almost 200 children in our Kindergarten through Seventh Grade alone, our intimate and nurturing environment is at the same time an active and exciting one.

Our Head of School is Ms. Michal Solomon, a longtime religious school educator and principal in the county. Ms. Solomon grew up in Haifa, Israel, was sent by the Jewish Agency to teach Hebrew in Belfast, Ireland, after which she came to the United States with her husband to continue in the field of Jewish Education.

The Pleasantville Community Synagogue Religious School seeks to create for our children an Olam Yehudi Katan, a small Jewish world, experiential as much as it is academic. The staff of caring, committed teachers under Ms. Solomon’s direction work to fashion what amounts to an extended Jewish family, where each child is appreciated and loved. The continuity of the teaching staff coupled with the intimacy of the teaching environment allows for an extraordinary level of relationship-building with both children and parents.

After the completion of Seventh Grade, the children have the opportunity to continue in our Pigishat Gedolim – 13 Program (a/k/a PG-13) with Rabbi Mark. The program centers on an investigation of popular media (television, movies, music videos) for clues about values in the general culture, a discussion about the students’ reactions to those values, and a study of traditional Jewish texts commenting on the same issues. The program acknowledges the sophistication of young people today, as well as the greater need for our youth to grapple effectively with the challenges of a more complex society. Peer support, the guidance of the rabbi, and the wisdom of the texts all go into making the program one valued by both the teens and their families.

An important and innovative addition to our children’s education has been our monthly Family Education Shabbat. The Saturday morning study, led by Rabbi Mark and based on the Torah portion of the week, provides our children with a rare chance to talk about things that really matter with their friends and their parents at the same time. Their friends give them support, their parents give them perspective.