Rambam Mesivta


Rambam Mesivta is a private Jewish High School in Lawrence, NY. Rambam Mesivta was founded in 1991 by a group of individuals who saw the need for an all boys' Mesivta program that offers classes in Religious Jewish Studies and College Preparatory studies. Students attend from Queens, Brooklyn, Great Neck, the Five Towns, Plainview, West Hempstead, and Greater Long Island.
Rav Zev Meir Friedman serves as Rosh HaMesivta and Rabbi Yotav Eliach as Principal.

History

Rambam Mesivta was founded in 1991 by a group of individuals who saw the need for an all boys' Mesivta program that offers classes in Religious Jewish Studies and College Preparatory studies.
In 2006 Rambam entered into a partnership with longtime rival HAFTR High School, which became known as Machon Hatorah. This move was intended to pool resources, and to raise the standard of religious education in HAFTR and secular education in Rambam. It also helped create Rambam’s sister school the now defunct Midreshet Shalhevet. This deal ended partially as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, and was due to a large defect Shalhevet created. This was a result in increased distribution of need based scholarships. In the end HAFTR refused to fund the deficit thus ending the deal. Shalhevet though was able to cover the deficit through a fund raising campaign and was able to remain open.
In 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, sister school Shalhevet was forced to close permanently.

Awards and Recognitions

Rambam Mesivta was honored with the National Blue Ribbon School Award of Excellence in 2015 for its high scholastic performance, as measured by SAT and other standardized tests. Rambam was the second Yeshiva on Long Island to have ever been honored with this prestigious award. Out of a possible 133,000 public, private and parochial schools that could apply for the award, only 39 Jewish, yeshivas or community schools have qualified to date.

Athletics

Rambam Mesivta has multiple athletic teams, including hockey, basketball, flag football, soccer, tennis, and softball.
Rambam's strongest sport is known to be hockey, as the Varsity team has made it to the playoffs several times, most recently in the 2017–2018 season. In the same year, the Junior Varsity team went 8–1 in the regular season, and defeated the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy in the first round of the playoffs.

Activism

Rambam Mesivta is notable in encouraging their student body to be involved with "Jewish activism and political awareness". Congresswomen Kathleen M. Rice, in recognizing the school for achieving the Blue Ribbon award, stated as follows: "within days of the 2004
earthquake and tsunami in Southeast Asia, which killed more than
250,000 people, students from Rambam Mesivta raised more than $6,000 to
help rebuild schools and buy school supplies in Sri Lanka. Following the tragic 2014 terrorist attack at the Har Nof synagogue
in Jerusalem, in which four Jewish worshipers were killed, a group of
10th graders from Rambam Mesivta responded immediately with a campaign
to raise money for the victims' families. Within a day of the attack,
the students had raised nearly $20,000, and within 10 days, they raised
over one million. Nearly two months after they launched their campaign,
this passionate and caring group of students raised over two million
dollars." Students at Rambam were among the picketers in front of the Polish consulate in NY to protest Polish action against an historian documenting Polish collusion with the Nazis during WWII. The protest led to a meeting between the dean of the high school, Rabbi Friedman, and the Polish consul-general, Urszula Gacek, attempting to find common ground. In the end they were successful and Jakiw Palij was deported to Germany.

Staff