Last month, a seemingly minor event took place that signifies sea-changes in American Jewry: a Jewish school in the New York City neighborhood of Kew Gardens Hills changed its name from “Schechter Queens” to “Queens Hebrew Academy.” The school was the first to take its name from Solomon Schechter, a distinguished scholar and a founder of Conservative Judaism in America, after whom numerous schools associated with that movement were named. But with changing demographics, the student body at Schechter Queens has been increasingly inclined toward Orthodoxy.
Gil Troy, who graduated from this school decades ago, during the high point of Conservative Judaism in America, reflects on this event, continuing observations he and his brother Tevi made on the Mosaic podcast in 2021:
Solomon Schechter’s transformation after 68 years tells an ideological tale, too. It’s a story of the rise—and now fall—of a school, and school network, that embodied the peoplehood-centered, deeply Zionist, patriotic and achievement-oriented Judaism that made American Jewry great. Schechter offered an extraordinary education, raising proud Jews, proud Americans, proud Zionists—and proud Queens kids, too.
Today, Conservative Judaism, which thrived in a middle-class-oriented, temperamentally moderate America, faces severe ideological, demographic and institutional challenges beyond the scope of what I can say here.
But as Solomon Schechter of Queens transitions into Queens Hebrew Academy, let us hail the American-Jewish literacy it conveyed. . . . We were born into a world far better than the East European hell our grandparents fled. We knew that, by rolling up our sleeves rather than throwing up our hands, we would make a better world for our children too. And we were grateful to Solomon Schechter School of Queens which we trusted to help us—and them—forge ahead.
Read more on JTA: https://www.jta.org/2025/01/08/ideas/my-solomon-schechter-school-embodied-a-bygone-american-zionist-and-new-york-jewish-dream