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Hillel
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Nurturing Jewish leaders
traditionally and now in
21st-century fashion.
STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
A
JAY DREIFUS
Segal Award honorees: Malka Littman, Ayala Perlstein, Pam
Smith, Clara Gaba, Adina Levin and Rivka Schuchman.
ABOVE: Judaics studies teacher Adina Levin works with students.
TOP: Hillel students, faculty and staff spell out 60 in honor of the
school’s 60th anniversary.
s Hillel Day School of
Metropolitan Detroit
heralds its 60th year, it
celebrates the transformation of
a school from a traditional aca-
demic model into an institution
that is nationally regarded as a
model for 21st-century learning.
All the while, from its found-
ing 29-member student body
located in two classrooms in
Detroit to its current student
body of 585 students from the
Early Childhood Center to
grade 8 in a building wired for
the future, Hillel has most of all
maintained Jewish values, tradi-
tion, a love of Israel and mensch-
keit at its core.
At its May 6 celebration, Hillel
will honor six longtime teachers
with the Rabbi Jacob E. Segal
(z”l) Award. Brian Hermelin, a
Hillel alumnus, parent of Hillel
alumni and a noted philan-
thropist, will receive the Dream
Maker Award.
The transformation of the
school to a 21st-century learn-
ing center began when Head of
School Steve Freedman started
his position 15 years ago dur-
ing volatile upheavals in global
economies.
Recognizing that the world
would need workers and think-
ers with very different skill sets
by the time his students became
adults, he knew Hillel could best
serve them through modern
teaching models that would pre-
pare them for a rapidly changing
world.
“When I came in 2003, it
was the beginning of the huge
disruption in the economy and
global relations, and we took it
as our challenge that a school
that wasn’t preparing students
for today’s world was doing
them a disservice,” Freedman
said.
“It’s up to us to purposefully
change education, and we have
become a more progressive
school,” he said.
“Much of what was predicted
at the end of the 20th century
has come true: We’ve moved
from an industrial society, where
people were sorted into jobs,
to one that is creative, design-
based and ever-changing. It will
only become more variable and
disruptive in the years to come.
Our children need to be pre-
pared for this complex world.”
To this end, the school
underwent extensive remodel-
ing to include a greenhouse, a
MakerSpace with 3D printers
and an overall open collabora-
tive modular learning environ-
ment. More than 100 educators
from local school districts and
from around the globe have vis-
ited the school to learn about its
transformation.
“Whatever time you live in
you believe is the most compli-
cated,” Freedman said. “And you
believe the time before you was
a simpler time. There’s always
the good old days. Our good old
days were when the Cold War
was over, and global conflicts
were isolated.
“It was easier to embrace
Israel, and it could do no wrong.
It was easy to be a Zionist school
in the ’70s and ’80s, when Israel
was a newer country, facing exis-
tential threats.
“Because of the way the world
works today, it’s harder to make
sure Jews are committed to and
love Israel. The liberal Jewish
community, adherence to Jewish
law and patterns of Jewish living
are becoming challenging, as
they are for all liberal religions,
and we need to help people to
understand that we can live
together in a ‘universal commu-
nity’ and maintain our distinc-
tiveness at the same time — pre-
serving what makes us unique.”
In 2006, Hillel initiated a trip
to Israel for eighth-graders.
During its recent history, two
moves in the late 2000s were
initially seen as controversial but
have ultimately strengthened
the school, Freedman said.
In 2008, the board of trust-
ees voted to end the school’s
affiliation with the Conservative
Schechter day school network
and to cast a wide net for Detroit
and became a community
school for Jewish children across
the religious spectrum.
And, in 2010, Hillel opened its
Early Childhood Center, which
coincided with declining enroll-
ment at area congregational
schools because public schools
were opening preschools.
The ECC was an opportunity,
Freedman explained, to provide
early childhood education in a
Jewish setting, and to stabilize
and grow Hillel’s enrollment.
HONOREES SHARE
HILLEL MOMENTS
When the six teachers being
honored started work at Hillel,
there were no special “computer
rooms,” no students had cell
phones, and most teaching was
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April 26 • 2018
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