Massada College

Posted at 4:53 PM, Wednesday, November 15, 2006

This week is Sports' Week at the boys' school Massada College. Yesterday, we stayed after school to enjoy such traditional activities as sack races, balloon races, and the infamous race with an egg in a spoon. The three houses of the school, Gideon, Maccabi, and Samson, all competed vigorously and were awarded house points for their efforts. Houses got extra points if the kids could persuade their parents to compete, and several brave moms entered the sack race. We ended the day with a sausage sizzle--a traditional Australian meal of grilled sausages, albeit kosher ones.

To say that Adelaide's only Jewish school is flying by the seat of its pants is to exaggerate its stability. The truth is, it's holding on by a thread. And not a very strong one either. The school is tiny, with a total of sixty students between the ages of 3 and 13. Yonatan and Nadav's classes combine two grade levels into one classroom, and there are still maybe 14 kids in each class. Children start to disappear to larger schools starting in grade four or so, and the oldest class is also the smallest. By all accounts, Massada College is too small to even come close to being self-sustaining, and every few years it's on the verge of closing. This last year has been one of those years, but it seems to be pulling itself together again and may last for a while yet.

Because of its small size, Massada College has provided the perfect soft landing for Yonatan and Nadav. They have been fussed over! Of course, both boys have been very well cared for by their teachers, who have done splendidly in welcoming their new students to a new country with new vocabulary, new money, and new spellings. Even more delightful is how the older students at the school have fussed over them. Nadav, who is cute and very funny, is often surrounded by a gaggle of girlfriends in sixth and seventh grade. At the end of the school day, they wave goodbye to him and give him hugs. Yonatan has been shy about attending some school programs. Older children encourage him and invite him to sit next to them. I have heard that such warmth between older children and younger ones is common in Australia, but it's hard to imagine how it might happen in schools where a single grade has one hundred kids.

Like every other school, Massada has its issues, and many of them are Jewish. It is located on the grounds of the Orthodox Adelaide Hebrew Congregation, and AHC's members have often felt a proprietory right to determine how Judaism is taught and transmitted. But at least a third of the school's students are members of the progressive Beit Shalom, and their parents are put off when the school becomes too dogmatic. It is a symptom of previous conflicts that not all the Jewish children in Adelaide attend Massada even though the tuition is eminently reasonable and the school has established itself as a prime feeder school for the finest private schools in the area.

I think this is going to be a pivotal year for Massada College, and it looks to be heading in a positive, pluralist direction. I only hope that the school survives long enough to enjoy a hopeful future!