Rochelle Zell Jewish High School (RZJHS), formerly Chicagoland Jewish High School (CJHS), (Rochelle Zell, he, תיכון שיקאגו), located 25 miles northwest of downtown Chicago, is a private, full-day,

co-educational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

high school for primarily

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

students from grades nine to twelve. Rochelle Zell first opened its doors in 2001 to 26 students.

History

Rochelle Zell Jewish High School opened in 2001 as Chicagoland Jewish High School, with 26 students: 23 freshmen and 3 sophomores. In the 2005–2006 school year, 94 students attended Rochelle Zell, and the number increased to 132 students in the 2007–2008 school year, along with many new faculty members. Due to growth in its student body, Rochelle Zell moved from its Morton Grove campus to a high school in Deerfield in Fall 2007. In 2015, the school received a donation from the Zell Family Foundation and subsequently changed its name to Rochelle Zell Jewish High School. For the 2019–2020 school year, enrollment was nearly 180 students drawn from over 20 communities throughout Chicago and its suburbs. Roughly three-quarters of current students advance to Rochelle Zell from Jewish day schools. The remaining students attend local public and private schools before transferring to Rochelle Zell.

Curriculum

Rochelle Zell Jewish High School offers a dual

curriculum In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...

of general studies and Jewish studies. It is affiliated with the Center for Jewish Day Schools, and its student body includes students from all streams of

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...

. Each school day includes a morning

Shacharit ''Shacharit'' ( he, שַחֲרִית ''šaḥăriṯ''), or ''Shacharis'' in Ashkenazi Hebrew, is the morning ''tefillah'' (prayer) of Judaism, one of the three daily prayers. Different traditions identify different primary components o ...

prayer service and an optional afternoon

Minchah Mincha ( he, מִנחַה, pronounced as ; sometimes spelled ''Minchah'' or ''Minḥa'') is the afternoon prayer service in Judaism. Etymology The name ''Mincha'', meaning "present", is derived from the meal offering that accompanied each sacrif ...

service.

Athletics

Rochelle Zell is a member of the Chicago Prep Conference (CPC) and offers a variety of sports, such as

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

, cross country,

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

, soccer,

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

, and

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

. The Rochelle Zell boys' basketball team were CPC division champions in the 2016–2017 season and IHSA regional champions in 2010, 2013, 2014, and 2019. In 2013 the boys' basketball team became the first Jewish high school in Illinois to compete in an IHSA sectional championship. The boys' cross country team won CPC championships from 2010 through 2017, while the girls' team won the CPC championships in 2010, 2011, and 2019. The girls' soccer team won CPC championships in 2015, 2016, and 2019. The boys' soccer team won their first CPC championship in 2018. The girls' volleyball team won the 2012 IHSA regional championship. The boys' volleyball team won the CPC in 2012 and 2018 and the CPC tournament in 2017 and 2018. The

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), thou ...

team was cut in the 2019–2020 academic year.

References

External links

* {{authority control Conservative Jewish day schools Jewish day schools in Illinois Educational institutions established in 2001 Deerfield, Illinois Private high schools in Cook County, Illinois 2001 establishments in Illinois