Governance

I begin my tenure as Board President of Berman Hebrew Academy with deep humility, made all the greater by the moment. Berman is, arguably, in the strongest position it has ever known, and I am keenly aware that I inherit that strength.

Unlike many past Presidents, I am not a Berman alumnus, I did not grow up in this community. I grew up in Cape Town, and my wife Jackie in Charleston. We made our home in Aspen Hill, as part of the joint Berman Hebrew Academy–Kehilat Pardes Initiative, the second family to arrive after the Topoloskys. Today we belong to a community of more than a hundred families: rooted in Berman, conceived by Berman, and part of Berman. When the time came to choose where our children would learn, daven, and grow, we anchored our lives in Berman Hebrew Academy. I am a beneficiary of this school not by inheritance but by decision.

The Gemara’s account of Ḥoni and the carob planter (תענית כ”ג ע”א) teaches the posture in which I take up this role. We are inheritors of a great legacy, an orchard planted, tended, and watered by those before us. Our task is to enrich it for the generations who come next, planting for shade we may never sit in ourselves.

And what an orchard it is. We continue to see extraordinary enrollment. Our facilities upgrades press forward. We are attracting educational talent of the highest caliber. And our graduates go on to the most prestigious yeshivot and universities, carrying Berman’s Torah into every world they enter. For all of this I am grateful beyond measure to the lay leaders, educators, and families who came before, and most immediately to my predecessor, Reuven Zakheim, whose stewardship leaves Berman so well positioned for what comes next.

I am equally grateful to partner with our Head of School, Rabbi Dr. Hillel Broder, whose return home to lead the school he himself attended is a blessing. He has already left an indelible mark, and I know the best is yet to come.

Together, our community can and must ensure that Berman continues to send into the world generation after generation of students steeped in Torah, devoted to learning, grounded in good character, and bound in love to עם ישראל וארץ ישראל. I did not grow up here but my children are growing up here, and I could not be prouder to plant alongside you.

Please feel free to reach me at president@mjbha.org.

Elan Burman