Finding Our Footing

Originally published in the December 2023 print edition.

Like the Israelites voyaging across the desert to the Promised Land, the Jewish Community High School of the Bay, too, went on a journey to find its place in the world.

At the time of JCHS’ opening, Keren Keshet, a foundation that provides funding to Jewish schools, had already purchased a building for the campus. However, the building needed renovation in order to be fit for a high school. It had previously been occupied by the College of Podiatric Medicine since 1914 until the college relocated to Oakland in 2001. 

In the first year after opening in the Fall of 2001, JCHS was temporarily housed on the campus of Congregation Kol Shofar in Tiburon, California. 

JCHS alumni and faculty affectionately refer to this time as the days when JCHS was just a “one room schoolhouse.”

“I think we like to remember that it was just one room, but there were actually three rooms.” Class of 2005 alum Luba Yusim recalls. 

In addition to the two classrooms, the third room was dedicated as the place where the students could eat, study and have Tefillah in the morning. Trailers were set up on the grounds as offices for the teachers and faculty. 

Yusim remembers her year at Kol Shofar as a “really intimate experience.”

The inaugural class consisted of only twenty two students in comparison to the 2023 calculated average of forty-five students per grade. The majority of the inaugural class got involved in the very first JCHS musical: Alice in Wonderland. The students went on field trips, including one to Disneyland, and shared big milestones like bnai mitzvot and finally receiving their laptops after months of waiting. 

“The day they arrived everyone sat [together] and pressed the [“on”] button at the same time.” Yusim remembers fondly. “I have a video of it.”

The cover of the 2001-2002 JCHS yearbook. (Fun fact: the JCHS mascot was originally going to be a dove until the inaugural class voted against it!)

For the 2002-2003 school year, a new freshman joined Yusim’s grade as everyone moved into the new building which had nineteen classrooms instead of three.

Even after the official move to Ellis street in Fall 2002, it would be a long process before the school building truly felt complete. For months, there were no lockers or padded, stadium seating in the auditorium. Although there was no actual theater during Yusim’s time at JCHS, the students put on productions each year. 

“[The building] was very bare when we started[, but] it was enormous. It almost felt too big for a long time.” Yusim reflects. “I came to the building a few years ago and I was really shocked… It looked much more lived in.”

Despite what the interior of the building initially lacked, the small but tight-knit community at JCHS flourished inside and outside campus. 

“We worked very hard from the beginning to integrate into the neighborhood [...] by volunteering in the community,” says Jan Reicher, former Vice President of the Board and Director of Marketing. It was important to her and the other founders for the school to establish itself in the neighborhood and make a positive impact in the local community. 

Over twenty years later, connecting with their neighbors continues to be a core part of JCHS’ community value and an influence of the school’s focus on social justice. 

“I’m still in touch with so many [former classmates and teachers]. Everyone feels like family.” Yusim shares. “It was a funny, but special time [and] I feel really grateful for it.”