A new Jewish tradition has taken hold at a private, non-Jewish school in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
On a recent Friday, about 240 students, parents and educators from the Town School, located on the Upper East Side, stayed late to eat matzah ball soup, recite blessings over challah and candles, and sing Hebrew songs.<\/p>\n
It was the third time in as many years that the school had held a Shabbat celebration, and more than half of the students and parents in attendance weren\u2019t Jewish.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there is a real enthusiasm and excitement for families who are not Jewish to come into their first Shabbat or learn more about it again,\u201d said Pierangelo Rossi, the Town School\u2019s director of equity and community action.<\/p>\n
Originally from Peru, Rossi is not Jewish. His first Shabbat experience ever was at the Town School in 2024, after Jewish parents organized a gathering in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.<\/p>\n
For years, the school had special \u201caffinity groups\u201d and spaces for students and parents of color, for \u201cwhite anti-racist\u201d students, and for queer students and their allies. The attack, and the surge of antisemitism that followed, spurred Jewish students and parents to work with the school to create their own.<\/p>\n
While the Town School does not collect information about students\u2019 religion, officials estimate that at least a quarter of the student body is Jewish.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter Oct. 7, we knew \u2014 and it became clear to all of us \u2014 that our Jewish community was looking for that sense of affirmation in a way they hadn\u2019t before,\u201d said Head of School Doug Brophy.<\/p>\n
Brophy, who has led the Town School since 2018, understood how they felt. He is also vice president of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side.<\/p>\n
Affinity groups have emerged as a hot-button issue in the debate over DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion<\/a>. While their proponents say the groups give minority and marginalized populations desperately needed spaces of their own, critics of DEI say the groups can reinforce divisions and inappropriately inject progressive ideologies into schools and other institutions.<\/p>\n Jewish \u201canti-woke\u201d advocates have particularly criticized the affinity group framework for too often forcing Jewish students into a binary framework about race and privilege that does not recognize the complexity of Jewish identity.<\/p>\n At the same time, tensions amid the aftermath of Oct. 7 roiled some New York City private schools. The head of one elite private school stepped down last summer<\/a> after members of the school community clashed over identity, antisemitism, Islamophobia and the Gaza war.<\/p>\n At the Town School, officials and parents say, those tensions have been absent. Instead, the entire school community has embraced the Shabbat celebrations alongside the other special events held to honor students\u2019 traditions, such as a lion parade on the school\u2019s block to mark Lunar New Year and a Persian New Year observance led by parents.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether it\u2019s coming from a vulnerability or a difference, it\u2019s [about] wanting to be part of something bigger than yourself, and not just our Jewish families and colleagues feeling a sense of identity, but everyone else developing a greater sense of empathy,\u201d Brophy said.<\/p>\n