By Holly Lebowitz Rossi
The teenagers stride through the doorway of the Newton Centre campus with confidence and anticipation. It is a different doorway from the one their parents and grandparents entered, and they do not pass through it as many times per week as their elders did, but one thing has remained constant over the generations.
They are arriving for what all agree is a life-changing Jewish experience at Prozdor.
Three families recently reflected on the deep meaning of making Prozdor a multigenerational experience.
David Lintz (
P'74), has been impressed with how Prozdor balances academic and social life, watching his eighth-grade son Michael go through the program.
"Now, Prozdor makes a huge effort to make it a very social experience for Michael," says Lintz, who attended a six-week summer program as well as three evenings a week during the school year. "I don't think the institution was as focused on the social part then," he says. Nonetheless, he and his classmates made their own fun by playing football on the school lawn on Sundays, or even sneaking out of the Hawes Street building for the occasional Red Sox game.
Part of the change to a more social environment, says Lintz, is the change of campus from Brookline, when he attended—a commute that meant a long Green Line ride from Needham—to Newton Centre, where the new Hebrew College features the Alumni Dining Hall, an expanded library and an inviting campus milieu that offers a new type of community for today's busy teens.
"I like spending time with just Jewish kids sometimes," says Michael (
P'06), who is enrolled in the six-hour program, when asked about Prozdor's social appeal. "It's just fun."
Academically, Michael takes advantage of small classes and elective courses that Lintz never had—the elder Lintz's classes often had 25 students, while Michael's Monday evening Hebrew class at Prozdor's Needham branch has four. "I really feel like I'm learning more in Prozdor now in less time than in Hebrew school before. I think that's the best part," Michael says.
The issue of social-academic balance also resonates for the Curtis family, another two-generation Prozdor family, with Dr. Richard Curtis (
P'65, HC'69), and his two daughters, Arielle (
P'03), and Nicole (
P'05), sharing the experience, though in different eras.
Curtis, a West Roxbury native and physician, went to Prozdor in the early 1960s for five days a week, along with friends from Revere, Lynn, Boston and Brookline. Today, he notices, his daughters' friends are from Wellesley, Newton and Needham.
Differences other than the geographic ones abound. Unlike his daughters, Curtis had to take an entrance exam for Prozdor, and his classes met for 12 hours each week, double his daughters' schedule.
But the father and daughters have much in common in their attitude toward Prozdor. Curtis says that he is amazed at how positive his children are about their Prozdor experience, something that he attributes to both the social environment at the school and the family tradition of a strong Jewish identity.
"Prozdor has pushed me to identify with Judaism in a positive way," says Arielle Curtis (P'03).
"I think very definitely everybody needs their North Star. For me, Judaism and Jewish education are my North Star," says Curtis.
"I hear my kids complain about a lot of things, but I don't hear them complaining about going to Prozdor. I really don't," he says. "They seem to enjoy it. The atmosphere is very positive today."
The way that Curtis articulates his Jewish identity so strongly has come through loud and clear to Arielle and Nicole.
"It's definitely changed me," says Arielle, an 11th-grader who will graduate from Prozdor this spring. "I think I'm more active now. Prozdor has pushed me to identify with Judaism in a positive way, to really emphasize what it means to be a Jew."
Arielle adds that the experience has special meaning because of the family connection. "I think it ties me to my dad because he had similar experiences to what I've had. It's just very special to be able to call yourself a graduate of Prozdor," she says.
Nicole, who is in the ninth grade, agrees. "It's shown me who I am and where I've come from, and helped me to define what kind of Jew I am."
The pure pleasure and rich Jewish experience of going to Prozdor stretches back even further in time with Mollie Stein Glanz (
P'44, HC'46), whose son Richard attended for two years and whose grandchildren Amanda (
P'05), and Daniel (
P'06), are now enrolled.
"I can remember the warm feeling that we had," says Glanz. "We loved going." Details like sharing coleslaw sandwiches—for a nickel apiece—with her friends and studying harder for her Prozdor tests than her public school exams stand out for Glanz, who was a career-long volunteer and Hebrew teacher with Jewish organizations including Hadassah and the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for Aged.
"My identity as a Jew was strengthened and reinforced by Prozdor. It really set the whole course of my life," reflects Glanz.
Glanz's son Richard, who went to Prozdor for two years during the late 1960s, adds that his short time at the school had a similar effect on his life.
"Certainly the values associated with being a Jew were very close to me and very important that they be passed on to my kids," he says.
And while times have changed and the immersion-style learning of Prozdor now takes place in fewer hours per week, Glanz is thrilled that her grandchildren are going through the same program as she did.
"The fact that they are going makes me very happy," she says. "In a way it gives me some sense of encouragement for the future of our Jewish youth."
Holly Lebowitz Rossi is a freelance writer who lives in Arlington, Mass.
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