In an effort to alleviate the shortage of trained administrators in American Jewish day schools, Yeshiva University's Max Stern Division of Communal Services and Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education teamed up to organize the Intensive Training Program, which began its initial work in July of 2000. The program facilitated the interaction of five day school principals with twelve outstanding Jewish Studies teachers who show promise as future administrators; it aims to provide participants, particularly the aspiring administrators, with critical academic expertise and advisement concerning situations they will encounter in Jewish day schools.

Funded by the Avi Chai Foundation for Jewish Day School Education, ITP was proposed as an academic training seminar for Jewish educators aspiring to become day school administrators. "We had hoped to provide for professional training in an intensive graduate school educational setting," explained Dr. Moshe Sokolow, the program's director. "A program that equips a dozen new people to become administrators is one that's going to have an impact on day school education."

ITP started scheduling continual group seminars, mock interviews, and lectures. Each event focused on a certain educational concern, such as incorporating children of varying intellectual abilities into one classroom, or supervising a class of uninterested students. At the center of each meeting were the five day school principals, known as mentors, who provided the twelve fellows with their accumulated personal experience. "We supplemented the Program with mentors to insure that we didn't get too lost in theoreticals," Sokolow recalled. "They provided us with invaluable insights."

ITP fellow Avi Levitt, Director of General Studies at the Mesivta of North Jersey, offered nothing but praise for the Program. "As a young administrator, I was able to bounce ideas off others with more experience," he explained. "It was well worthwhile, well put-together, and educational. We had a good chevra and good mentors."

The continuing ITP programs coincide with another development in MSDCS. In July of this year, Yeshiva President Rabbi Norman Lamm officially appointed Rabbi David Israel, who had served in various administrative positions in the department since 1996, to the position of Director of MSDCS. According to Lamm, "Israel's experience as a pulpit rabbi and communal leader, and his knowledge and balanced perspective on the greater American Jewish community, will enable him to provide creative leadership in his new position."

Israel's track record seems to indicate that he is well qualified for the position. Israel was instrumental in helping Eimatai, MSDCS's up-and-coming Yeshiva High School Leadership Conference, earn respect as a national training program. Israel has also established an e-mail halacha consultation service and informal "tea talks" for rabbinic alumni of RIETS.

"My main objective," Israel asserted a few weeks ago, "is to further develop Yeshiva's relationship with the outside community [and to] better relate to youth and alumni around the country. I want to harness the power of our resources and bring it to the Jewish world at large." Pointing toward the various student interns currently employed in the MSDCS office on the fourth floor of Furst Hall, the new director also stressed that he aims at cultivating a workplace that is student-friendly and informal.