NOJDS readies for name change to Community Day School

The New Orleans Jewish Day School will officially rename itself to start an aggressive marketing campaign its board believes will ensure its survival as a source of Jewish education in New Orleans. The change to Community Day School will become complete in official ceremonies and with several family fun activities emphasizing the celebration of Succot at the Metairie Goldring-Woldenberg campus on West Esplanade Thursday night, October 4 at 6 p.m.

In a letter that announced the decision, head of school Bob Berk explained the intention of the name change is “more than semantics.”

“We aim to become a Jewish school that also serves the greater New Orleans community,” Berk wrote. “Our mission will not change. We will still provide an excellent general studies education to all our students. Equally so, our students will learn Judaism, love Judaism and live Judaism.”

Berk wrote that the name change was intended to reach out to children with interfaith heritages and unaffiliated families. He suggested the weekday learning experience would transition students into a better experience of the family weekend including the observance of Shabbat with its “universal messages of sanctity, hope and faith.”

While the marketing campaign has yet to be announced fully, one change is already evident. In letterheads, the New Orleans Jewish Day School has always been described as being “in memory of” the late Patti Arnold Samuels, a dedicated school volunteer and patron who died tragically several years ago in an auto accident. The new brochure bears the slightly altered inscription of “inspired by Patti Arnold Samuels” and a new symbol of a mighty tree underscored with the words “Learn. Love. Live.”