Rabbi S. replacing Mr. G.
In a landmark overhaul, Chabad’s Yeshivah and Beth Rivkah Colleges in Melbourne, Australia will share a principal from January 2013 – with Yeshivah principal Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler to assume both posts.
Yeshivah Centre committee of management chair Don Wolf said that after the committee conducted a global search for a new principal of the school, it found with Rabbi Smukler, who has been Yeshivah College principal for two years, “that the best candidate was already in Melbourne”.
The switch heralds a new era after a marathon 42-year innings by Shmuel Gurewicz as Beth Rivkah’s principal.
Tasked with developing what he calls an “amalgamated” approach to running Yeshivah and Beth Rivkah, while at the same time retaining the separate identities of the two colleges, Rabbi Smukler explained that the two schools have experienced distinct but largely parallel development, due to effective leadership structures at both.
“We started a while ago to move the two schools forward together in key areas. A lot of it has been in curriculum development, a lot of the preparation for the national curriculum, adapting it to our own ethos. We looked across the campuses and developed a whole-school ICT [information/communication/technology] and e-learning plan, we’ve appointed e-learning coaches in each school, and a lot of the coaches are cross-school and more will be,” he told The AJN.
“But where it comes to servicing the people, to somebody being there for the students and staff on the ground, on a day-to-day basis, obviously it doesn’t makes sense to amalgamate positions, and we’re going to keep that very distinct identity between the schools.”
Rabbi Smukler also committed himself to continuing his predecessor’s four-decade legacy. Affectionately known as “Mr G”, Gurewicz told The AJN he has presided over a more than tripling of student enrolments from some 200 to more than 700 at present, with about 21 VCE subjects to choose from. Beth Rivkah now has art, music and computer rooms, as well as a language centre and gym.
“The school has become suited to the 21st century. Parents have changed. Students have changed. Expectations have changed. When the school began, most of the parents were Holocaust survivors; they came from Europe, and their mentality was the school knows best and the teachers knew best. But we’ve produced educated students [who are today’s parents] and they challenge us and don’t necessarily believe teachers know best. We have to live up to this challenge.”
Gurewicz has assumed the mantle of head of special projects and will develop the Yeshivah Centre’s school facilities further.
Thornhill Long Time Admirer
Yehoshua, we are so very proud of you… you were raised by excellent – warm, caring parents back in Toronto, Canada…and we constantly we the fruits of their labour coming true. May you continue from strength to strength and may your dear parents continue to reep tons of nachas and all of klal yisroel. Amen. Good Shabbos.
Thinkster
Yehoshua Smukler is the right guy for the job! Great guy!
Boruch.m.b
Feh does this mean the schools are going coed?
Go R- Smukler, Don Wolf & Nechama Bendet
rabbi smukler is a terrific principal! I was there when he came and I always believed in him, he really has his act together and restored order to the school and does a great job! Htazlacha!
does
this mean that all the kids in melbourne will learn to read and daven the same way?
As a visitor to melbourne, its so strange the way the children and adult (girls) have the most messed up way of reading and davening!
BR Alumnus
I can’t imagine Beth Rivkah without Mr. G!!!
Thinkster
Hey ‘does wrote’, where were you visiting from – Nepal? The only thing messed up is your comment.
Time for Mr. G. to move on
It was time for Mr. G to move on. 42 is way too long for someone to be in chinuch….. Fresh blood can only help the school and hopefully giv eit a chassidisher ruach
Name Withheld, Buffalo NY
i say rabbi smukler is officially the most sought out rabbi in regards to chinuch in australia; not just because of his knowledge of torah, not just because of his professional skills that he brought with him when he learned in canada and north america; but he embues a warmth, and a menschlekeit, within darkei chassidus… this is the secret that sets him apart from other mechanchim.
Toronto-s got Talent
Toronto’s got Talent!
Too bad they don’t retain the talent to run their own mosdos – some of which are suffering financially, in one of the richest and tzedaka giving cities in North America!
Time for the Head Shaliach to start recruiting local talent instead of importing “foreigners”.
beenthere
just a puppet for powerful families who run chabad in melbourne. Nothing ever changes and meanwhile the community is crumbling. Very few children come out of Yeshiva high school religous. In fact very few come out at all. Only 1 boy finished last year. The public in Australia only hears about the school because the numerous pedophile scandals and coverups are front page news in the australian newspapers.
Simcha Udwin
Whoever “Time for Mr. G. to move on” is, have the courage to put your name to your statement.
I’m a BR alumnus, and Mr G was an amazing principal. I wish he (and his partner in life, Chava, who helped run the school alongside him) would live and run Beth Rivkah forever! A person is only as old as their mental attitude. Mr & Mrs G are highly educated, have always had an enlightened attitude toward education, and were committed to providing girls with a solid, rounded Jewish and secular education so that they could be a credit to the Jewish community and the world. I’m not sure what you mean by a more “chassidishe” education, especially since Mr & Mrs G’s running of the school delivered just that in the true sense of what it means to be a chasid.
I can’t speak for Rabbi Smukler as I don’t know him.
Simcha Udwin