This Week

Akiva Losing Its Leader

DIANA LIEBERMAN

Staff Writer

R

abbi Karmi Gross, principal
of Yeshivat Akiva since
1995, will leave in June to
become head of
Maimonides Academy in Los Angeles.
Aside from the advantages of
California's climate, Rabbi Gross
declined to comment on the reasons
for his departure.
"I would like to be remembered as
somebody who tries to connect to every
single student every single day," he said.
He and his wife Naomi have 10
children.
Akiva President Michael
Greenbaum said the Southfield school's
search committee is close to a decision
on a new principal, and would be
adding a secular studies director at the
high school level as well.
Greenbaum credited Rabbi Gross
with improving the image of Akiva
in the community at large, while
instilling a sense of school spirit in
students and faculty.
Rabbi Gross was actively involved in
the planning and layout for Akiva's new
home, in the former site of

Congregation Beth Achim on 12 Mile
Road, Greenbaum said.
Parents and students alike are enthu-
siastic about the redesigned building,
which has become a selling point for
the school since opening in August.
Creating and moving into the school
was the watershed event in his five-year
tenure, Rabbi Gross said, adding that
he is gratified to see programs he initiat-
ed become part of school tradition.
Ken Kohn of West Bloomfield, an
Akiva parent for 13 years, called Rabbi
Gross an excellent administrator who
has improved both the quality of educa-
tion and school spirit. In addition,
Kohn said, Rabbi Gross brought "a love
of observance, and it's contagious."
"It will be hard for us to replace
him," Kohn said, "and equally hard for
him to replace the students of Akiva."
Like Yeshivat Akiva, Maimonides
Academy has a centrist Orthodox,
Zionist affiliation.
Centrist Orthodoxy, also known as
modern Orthodoxy, values both Jewish
and secular learning, and views the
founding of the state of Israel as reli-
giously significant.
While Akiva offers pre-kindergarten
through 12th grade, Maimonides ends

to a large
school in
Los Angeles.

at eighth grade. And the Los Angeles
school's enrollment is about 450, while
Akiva has just short of 250 students.
Founded about 32 years ago,
Maimonides was the only school west
of New York City designated specifically
for the Sephardic Jewish population,
said executive director Rabbi Baruch
Kupfer. Today, about half its students
are Sephardic and half Ashkenazic.
"We were looking for an experienced,
very knowledgeable leader, with excellent
interpersonal skills," said Rabbi Kupfer.
He is a member of the search committee
at Maimonides that recommended
Rabbi Gross for the principal's job.
"From seeing what he's done in Detroit,
he's just the kind of person we need."

In his five years as Akiva's top
administrator, Rabbi Gross has been
able to 'motivate both students and
faculty with his energy and enthusi-
asm, said Rosalie Lake, the school's
general studies principal.
The two worked together to develop
student services, student and parent
counseling and learning center activities.
Rabbi Gross was instrumental in get-
ting the school involved in the Kollel
Torah•M'Tzion (Dedicated Torah
Educators From Zion) program, in
which four young Israeli couples spend •
two years in a day school in the diaspo-
ra, teaching and studying.
The program was in its infancy last
year, when Rabbi Gross persuaded
Akiva's board to take part. The decision
came just in time, Greenbaum said,
because the Kollel program is now so
popular that it's become harder to find
enough Israeli teachers to participate.
The Kollel teachers are terrific role
models," Greenbaum explained, "espe-
cially for the teenagers."
In recent years, Akiva, founded in
1964, has seen losses in enrollment.
Total enrollment this year is just under
250, compared to 260 last year and
296 the year before that. This year,
however, high school enrollment has
climbed from 50 to 70 students.
One common concern voiced by par-
ents and students has been the level of
secular academics, specifically at the
high school. In addition, some have
questioned if the school is losing its cen-
trist roots and moving more to the right.
"I'm not so sure we have moved
more to the right as much as, in gener-
al, society has moved more to the
right," Greenbaum said.
Akiva maintains its centrist views, he

said. "We have been speaking to a cer-
tain person we hope to hire and his phi-
losophy is in line with that view"
The school's board of directors is
addressing the question of high school
academics as well, Greenbaum said.
"We are on the verge of hiring a secu-
lar studies person for the upper school,"_
he said. "This person would come from
the public school sector and will be able
to bring their area of knowledge, work
on curriculum, design programs."
The upper school head would be a
new position, Greenbaum said, with
Lake, the general studies prinCipal, con-
tinuing to work with the younger grades.
Meanwhile, many parents will retain
fond memories of Rabbi Gross. "He
worked very closely with us and with
our kids," said Ronnie Schreiber of Oak
Park "I always felt he had the best
interests of the kids at heart." ❑

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