Moriah School gets major donation
Campus to be named after Yocheved Orbach
The campus of the Moriah School in Englewood is getting a name, after the day school received the largest gift in its history.
The gift comes as the school, the first Jewish day school founded in Bergen County, celebrates its 50th anniversary with a campaign to refresh the campus for its next 50 years.
The Yocheved Orbach Campus reflects the donation from Jessica and Meyer Orbach and their extended family, in memory of Meyer’s mother.
Three of the Orbachs’ four children attend Moriah; the fourth graduated last year.
Meyer Orbach heads a real estate firm, the Orbach Group, that specializes in rental apartment buildings.
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Yocheved Orbach |
“We moved to Englewood from the Upper East Side ten years ago, and were immediately drawn to Moriah,” Jessica Orbach said. “We love the idea of a big, bustling community school, with lots of energy and activity. We live down the street from Moriah, and it has really become a second home to our children.”
Ms. Orbach said her mother-in-law, who lived in Brooklyn, “loved coming to Moriah, and she felt very much a part of the Englewood community.”
“She never missed a siddur or chumash play for any of her grandchildren. She took great pride in the donation of the new Orbach Playground at Moriah last year. For her, this was the realization of all she taught her children about community service.
“She was so proud that her husband” – Joseph, a Holocaust survivor – “was interviewed by our daughter Eve for Names Not Numbers. This past Moriah graduation was the last school event she attended for any of her grandchildren. It was a miracle she was there for that, and she was beaming while watching Eve graduate.”
Yocheved Orbach was born in Israel in 1948. Her father, Leo Schlusselberg, was one of Prime Minister David Ben Gurion’s chief security officers. Her family moved to El Paso, Texas, when she was a child, and then to the Bronx when she was in her teens. She moved to Brooklyn when she married, and she worked there as an elementary school art teacher in a public school.
“To teach kids art is to foster creativity, emotions, expression, and individuality,” said Jessica. “Yocheved did that her whole life.”
When her children were students at the Yeshiva of Flatbush, Yocheved was an active volunteer. “Yocheved was passionate about, and dedicated to, yeshiva education,” Jessica Orbach said.
“There was no better example of how one should treat one’s fellow man. The children of Moriah will feel her soul and spirit, and she will live on through them.
“She will infuse the halls of the school with her love of learning and her love of life.”
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