Tarbut V'Torah Community Day School (TVT) is a private

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 ...

non-denominational Community Day School located in southern

Irvine, California Irvine () is a Planned community, master-planned city in South Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the 1960s and the city was formally incorporated on ...

, in northern

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

.Martin Aaron Brower (2010)
''Orange County Jew: a Memoir''
/ref> The school is divided into separate sections: the Lower School serves grades TK-5, and the Upper School serves grades 6-12.Jane Yu (July 15, 2013)
"Jewish School in Irvine Names New CEO,"
''Orange County Business Journal''. The schools are located on its campus that was donated by the Samueli family and other donors. The school has been recognized as a

Blue Ribbon School The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program is a United States Department of Education award program that recognizes exemplary public and non-public schools on a yearly basis. Using standards of excellence evidenced by student achievement measures, ...

History

Founded in 1991 by

Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accep ...

Irving "Papa" Gelman, Tarbut V'Torah Community Day School (TVT), is an elementary, middle, and high school educational facility located in

. Gelman died in 2018. The school sits on a campus, opened in 1997 with more than 500 students. The school became the second Jewish school in

to be cited among the 465 National Distinguished

Blue Ribbon Schools The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program is a United States Department of Education award program that recognizes exemplary public and non-public schools on a yearly basis. Using standards of excellence evidenced by student achievement measures, ...

in California when the designation was conferred during the 1998-1999 school year. The school graduated its first senior class in 2001. The campus expanded the upper school in September 2002: An area of was added and a new middle and high school was constructed to accommodate increased enrollment for all grade levels. The campus encompasses and of structures. In 2005-06, a record 645 students (grades K-12) enrolled at TVT, making it the eighth-largest Jewish Community Day School in the United States. In 2013, Tarbut V’Torah named teacher Jeffrey Davis its new chief executive. That year it had 603 students and 84 faculty members, a $13 million operating budget, and total assets of about $42 million. The name "Tarbut" is inspired by the

Tarbut The word Tarbut (תרבות) means "Culture" in Hebrew. The Tarbut movement was a network of secular, Hebrew-language schools in parts of the former Jewish Pale of Settlement, specifically in Poland, Romania and Lithuania. It operated primarily bet ...

schools created by the

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

-speaking community of pre-World War II

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

. The founder of Tarbut V'Torah, Irving Gelman, attended one of these schools. Tarbut V'Torah, translated from

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

, simply means culture &

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...

. Tarbut schools had a curriculum that was secular and included science, humanities, and Hebrew studies, including Jewish history. Today, other Tarbut schools exist in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and i
Mexico
but there is no formal affiliation between either of those schools and Tarbut v'Torah.

Athletics

TVT's athletics department is divided into Middle School athletics and High School athletics. Tarbut V' Torah's middle school athletic program competes in the Tri-Way League, consisting of 10 other private schools throughout Orange County. The boys field three teams which include

flag football Flag football is a variant of American football where, instead of tackling players to the ground, the defensive team must remove a flag or flag belt from the ball carrier ("deflagging") to end a Down (gridiron football), down. The sport has a ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, and

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

, while the girls compete in

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 Summ ...

, basketball, and soccer. TVT's high school athletic program has more than 10 teams. In the fall, girls compete in volleyball (ranked in Division 5) and

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 ...

, and both boys and girls compete in

cross country running Cross country running is a sport in which teams and individuals run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain such as dirt or grass. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open coun ...

. In the winter, both boys and girls compete in soccer; in addition, TVT has a winter basketball team, which is ranked in Division 5/the Express League. In the spring, boys can play tennis,

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 tea ...

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 ...

, and volleyball, and the girls can play in swimming and

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

Girls' soccer

Camille Levin Camille Levin Ashton (born Camille Tayla Levin; April 24, 1990) is an American retired professional women's association football, soccer defender (association football), defender and current Sporting director, general manager of the National Wom ...

attended Tarbut V' Torah, where she played soccer on a co-ed team for at least one season and was named to the

NSCAA The United Soccer Coaches (formerly known as the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA)) is an organization of American soccer coaches founded in 1941. It is the largest soccer coaches organization in the world, with more than 30 ...

All-America team in 2006 and 2007. She went on to play for the Stanford Cardinal women's soccer team that won the 2011 NCAA Division I Women's Soccer Tournament, and a career in which she in 2013 was the captain of the

United States U-23 women's national soccer team The United States U-23 women's national soccer team is a youth soccer team operated under the auspices of U.S. Soccer. Its primary role is the development of players in preparation for the full Women's National Team. The team competes in a va ...

. Camille Levin's younger sister Savannah Levin (class of 2013) also played soccer for the school for four years, and was named league MVP in soccer all four years, as well as a four-time first team all-league selection. She went on to play for the USC Trojans women's soccer team that won the 2016 NCAA Division I Women's Soccer Tournament. As a sophomore in 2014 and as a junior in 2015 she earned

Pac-12 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...

All-Academic honorable mention. Carly Malatsky, a 2016 graduate of Tarbut V’ Torah High School who attended it from kindergarten on, captained the girls' soccer team from 2013-16, and scored 73 goals in 2015-16, an Orange County record and second all-time in

California Interscholastic Federation The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) is the governing body for high school sports in the U.S. state of California. CIF membership includes both public and private high schools. Unlike most other state organizations, it does not have a s ...

(CIF) history. With her playing the team was three-time San Joaquin League Champion (2014-16), as she was three-time San Joaquin League Player of the Year (2014-16) and led Orange County in goals each of the three years. She now plays for the Stanford Cardinal women's soccer team, with whom she has twice won the NCAA Division I Women's Soccer Tournament.

Notable alumni

* Camille Levin Ashton * Savannah Levin *Carly Malatsky

References

External links

Official siteProfile of the School by the Orange County RegisterAccreditation Profile

National Association of Independent Schools The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) is a U.S.-based membership organization for private, nonprofit, K-12 schools. Founded in 1962, NAIS represents independent schools and associations in the United States, including day, boar ...

{{authority control High schools in Orange County, California Private schools in California Jewish day schools Jewish day schools in California Educational institutions established in 1991 1991 establishments in California Education in Irvine, California Private elementary schools in California Private middle schools in California Private high schools in California