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on the cover

in
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A New Home

Farber Hebrew Day School welcomes students to its new building.

MALKIE ROSENBLOOM SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
PHOTOS BY BRETT MOUNTAIN

ABOVE: Students celebrate the
first day in the new building.
TOP RIGHT: Ninth-grader
Jeremiah Wolfe participates in
Shacharit (morning) services.
CENTER: The main lobby
features stained glass windows
of the 12 tribes of Israel.
BOTTOM: Rabbi Asher Nemes
of the Judaic faculty affixes a
mezuzah to a classroom door
as high school students watch.

10

March 9 • 2017

I

magine feeling that “first day of school”
sense of renewal twice in one year. That’s
just what the students, staff and families
of Farber Hebrew Day School experienced
last week.
On Tuesday, Feb. 28, upon returning from
mid-winter break, students of the Southfield
school entered their new building for the
first time. The 69,000-square-foot facility,
built in 15 months by Rand Construction and
designed by French & Associates, boasts sep-
arate wings for its Early Childhood Center,
elementary, middle school and high school
divisions and is crafted to foster students’
personal, educational and spiritual growth
— ideal for a 21st-century learning environ-
ment.
After leaving behind 17.5 years of memo-
ries in the adjacent “old” building (previously
Congregation Beth Achim) and four other

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previous buildings (Lathrup Village, United
Hebrew School Building, Young Israel of Oak
Woods and the Labor Zionist Building on
Schaefer Highway), the Farber school fam-
ily embraces its newly constructed home in
its 54th year as Detroit’s Modern Orthodox
Jewish day school.
Farber’s 282 students, from nursery
through grade 12, entered the building with
excitement, joy and purpose. The ECC chil-
dren were escorted into
their classrooms to become
acclimated to their new
spaces, while students in
grades 1-12 gathered in the
new multi-purpose room
for the school’s first assem-
bly under the guidance of
Rabbi Scot Berman, acting
Rabbi Scot
head of school.
Berman

He explained to the students the impor-
tance of fashioning their new school into
their own miniature sanctuary, just as the
Israelites of the desert built their collective
sanctuary. The students danced in honor
of the new building and celebrated Rosh
Chodesh Adar (beginning of the month of
Adar).
Afterward, students were escorted back
to their classrooms where teachers and stu-
dents affixed classroom mezuzot. At Farber’s
board meeting March 1, the executive board
affixed a mezuzah on the school’s conference
room door.

IN GRATITUDE

Behind the improved features of the new
building, including 21st-century technology
enhancements, student collaboration hubs,
multiple science labs and an extended art

