By Stephen J. Bronner
“Our extremely generous parent body has donated over $150,000,” read a e-mail sent to parents from Rabbi Zev Friedman, Rosh Yeshiva of Machon HaTorah. “The deficit has been covered. We are therefore pleased to announce that Shalhevet High School for Girls will open as originally scheduled.”
Machon HaTorah is a three-school partnership between Shalhevet, Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway (HAFTR) and Rambam Mesivta for Boys. The partnership between the schools has been rumored to have ended, but HAFTR officials said they have yet to hear from Rambam officially.
“HAFTR has funded the deficits for the Machon and we were prepared to continue funding Rambam,” said Yaron Kornblum, co-president of HAFTR. “The Shalhevet decision was in large part also based on the fact that HAFTR parents were solely underwriting and funding all the deficits. Any decision that Rambam makes at this point would be their own unilateral decision to terminate the Machon relationship. HAFTR has made it clear to them that despite the discontinuance of funding for Shalhevet, the HAFTR-Rambam cooperation would continue.”
Friedman said the pulling of funding from Shalhevet is the reason Rambam wants to end the partnership. “HAFTR has stated publicly and privately that it is no longer fulfilling its obligations under its partnership agreement with Rambam to fund Shalhevet’s operating expenses,” Friedman said. “In view of HAFTR’s position, the partnership agreement between HAFTR and Rambam is no longer in effect.”
