Yeshiva University High Schools of Los Angeles

History

Shortly before Donatello Puccinelli and his family arrived in Los Angeles in July 1977, he proposed establishing a school and a center to honor Simon Wiesenthal. YULA was intended to be an affiliate of Yeshiva University offering secondary and tertiary education, but ultimately it became solely a high school. As time passed, the Los Angeles Orthodox Jewish community perceived that Hier had placed more attention on developing the Wiesenthal Center as opposed to the educational center. The school was ultimately founded in 1979.

Yeshiva University of Los Angeles purchased a $2.25-million facility for high school classes, located on Robertson Boulevard, in late May 1990. Rabbi Hier had outbid Sephardic Jewish and Sikh organizations for the site. Prior to the purchase, Hier had asked for $5 million in additional federal funding for the Wiesenthal Center. In response, there were serious considerations for establishing a new Orthodox Jewish high school in Los Angeles, and some parents at YULA had threatened to remove their children.

Campuses

YULA has separate campuses for boys and girls within the Pico-Robertson area of Los Angeles.

YULA Boys' school has 15 classrooms with three science labs. All classrooms have ceiling mounted projectors, while select classrooms have Smart Boards. YULA has an outdoor basketball court as well as a student lounge, with a flat-screen TV, vending machines, a student run store, and kitchen appliances. YULA also has a Beit Midrash and a Sephardic Beit Midrash which serve as locations for davening and assemblies.

YULA Girls school has 15 classrooms with two science labs. All classrooms have ceiling-mounted projectors, while select classrooms have Smart Boards. YULA has an outdoor courtyard where students eat and relax, a full-size auditorium for assemblies and productions, an art studio, the Kestenbaum Library, which houses over 6,000 volumes of text, a gymnasium, and a large kosher kitchen and cafeteria with hot meals daily.

Tuition

The cost to attend YULA is approximately $31,000.

Faculty

Boys School 46 Full and part-time faculty all of whom hold a B.A. and/or B.S. degree

Girls School 48 Full and part-time faculty

Student body

Each school has a student body of approximately two hundred students from different areas of Los Angeles. Many students live in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood, Fairfax District, and the San Fernando Valley.

Curriculum

The YULA curriculum is split into two parts. One part is devoted to general studies such as history, mathematics, science, and English, while the other part of the day is devoted to Judaic studies, with a curriculum of classes on Jewish texts. Sections of Chumash, Navi, Mishnah, Gemarah, and Halakha and Tanakh Masters.

Student life

Extracurricular activities include:

College placement

The majority of YULA High School graduates go on to higher education. Typically, ninety percent of all YULA graduates enter a four-year college or university; ten percent enter a local community college.

Prior to entering college, the majority of YULA graduates take a gap year to study in a seminary or yeshiva.

Sports

The school has sports teams in the following sports: basketball (varsity & junior varsity), baseball, tennis, volleyball, cross country, flag football, golf, and soccer.

In 1997 the school asked the California Interscholastic Federation to move the November cross-country championships to a day other than Saturday; Orthodox Jews would not participate if the competition was held on a Saturday.

Technology

Beginning in 2009, YULA began the adoption of a One-to-One laptop program with the help of Apple Inc.

Some of the technology utilized at YULA includes:

Notable alumni