Tehiyah school fund-raisers floored by $1 million gift

Friday, February 23, 2001 | by

JOE ESKENAZI

Carol Bronstein wanted $1 million. So she asked for it, and somebody said yes.

It was that simple.

"Now I really know what it's like to say, 'I feel like a million bucks!'" said Bronstein, a board member at El Cerrito's Tehiyah Day School. "Let's just say we were pleasantly surprised."

The anonymous gift from a longtime Tehiyah family with children currently enrolled in the school nearly tripled the funds raised toward a 10,000-square-foot multipurpose building.

The proposed structure would serve Tehiyah's 340 students in kindergarten through eighth grade as an auditorium and gymnasium. It will also contain a music room, a Jewish studies room, storage space, a kitchen and bathrooms.

"We don't have enough classrooms to begin with. There's no gym, no place for the kids to play when it rains," said Steve Tabak, the school's headmaster. "We start every day with a morning assembly and if it rains, we can't have it."

Coming in late January, the largest donation in school history boosted the funds raised for Tehiyah's capital project up to $1.6 million. With groundbreaking just a few months off, Tabak hopes to raise an additional $400,000, with $2 million more covered by a tax-exempt municipal bond.

The $1 million donation is the anonymous family's third and largest gift to Tehiyah Day School, which was founded in 1979 by 13 families from Berkeley's Reform Congregation Beth El. Today Tehiyah students run the gamut from Orthodox to unaffiliated.

The donor family remains anonymous because of a strong desire to keep the focus on the school, rather than its benefactors. In fact, the family's fervor for anonymity is so great, members would only speak to the Bulletin through a third party.

"I feel very blessed and fortunate, and I like to give back to the community," a member of the family told Tehiyah's development director, Sara Bolder. "I come from an area where the Jewish community is less assimilated. I appreciate that I'm able to have my children in a Jewish community where their heritage is valued and recognized."

Starting in kindergarten, Tehiyah students learn Hebrew and Jewish studies. Jewish elements find their way into history, English and art classes as well.

"I think this is such a great family, and they believe really strongly in the way the school is going," Bronstein said of the donor family. "They're giving to the program, not just the building. What's most important is what goes on in the building, not the building itself."

When asked why the gift was so generous, the family member replied, "I'm very fortunate and I have that much to give."

Construction of the multipurpose building is phase two of a three-part campus master plan.

The first phase was completed in 1996, when the school added a computer lab, a scientific laboratory, two classrooms and an office space to Tehiyah's middle school wing.

Slated for some time down the road, phase three addresses the replacement of several portable classrooms and the construction of a new library.

Tabak first heard about the donation while playing messages on his office answering machine. "It didn't initially register," he said. "I haven't dealt with anything like this before, so I don't remember if I was standing or sitting. I was blown away, that's for sure."

The headmaster compares the experience to winning the lottery but "probably in a deeper way."

"It doesn't get instantly translated into changing one person's life," he said. "It elevates an entire institution."

A tongue-in-cheek Tabak added that he will hold off on making the purchase traditionally associated with newly anointed lottery-winners—a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

"I think the noise would offend our neighbors up here," the headmaster joked.