A Requiem for a Day School

Last month, a seemingly minor event took place that signifies sea-changes in American Jewry: a Jewish school in the New York City neighborhood of Kew Gardens Hills changed its name from “Schechter Queens” to “Queens Hebrew Academy.” The school was the first to take its name from Solomon Schechter, a distinguished scholar and a founder of Conservative Judaism in America, after whom numerous schools associated with that movement were named. But with changing demographics, the student body at Schechter Queens has been increasingly inclined toward Orthodoxy.