Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy

Private, Jewish day school in Bryn Mawr, PA, United States

Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy is a coeducational college preparatory and religiously pluralistic Jewish day school for grades 6 through 12, located in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded in Center City, Philadelphia in 1946 as Akiba Hebrew Academy, the school renamed itself in 2007. It is the oldest pluralistic Jewish secondary school in the United States.

Akiba Hebrew Academy was founded in 1946 by a group of individuals, primarily Conservative rabbis, active in the Philadelphia Jewish community, including Dr. Joseph Levitsky, Rabbi Simon Greenberg, Rabbi Elias Charry, and Dr. Leo L. Honor. The school was originally located in rented rooms at the YM & YWHA at Broad and Pine Streets in Center City, Philadelphia. The school was founded without a connection to any Jewish denomination. The founding of Akiba marked a point when enough Jewish leaders believed that Jews had been incorporated into American society that they were willing to create a school solely for Jews. The founding of Akiba was met with opposition from some within Philadelphia's Jewish community, particularly from the reform Jewish community. Akiba was founded as a progressive school, which a 1946 brochure for the school described as "the needs, interests and aspirations of the individual pupil are the school’s primary concern."

In April 1956, Akiba purchased a estate on North Highland Avenue in Merion Station, on the Main Line for $105,000. The property had once been part of a large estate called "Ashdale," which had been built by William Simpson, a 19th century insurance entrepreneur. After Simpson's death in 1909, his family broke up the estate, and the McMenamin family purchased a section on which they built a mansion that they named "Drake Linden Hall." After extensive renovations, the school dedicated its new foyer, classrooms, library, and science laboratory in December 1958. In 1967, Elie Wiesel spoke to Akiba's graduating class as the commencement speaker. From 1973 to 1975, Akiba's campus underwent an expansion process which included the construction of a new building, library and auditorium. Akiba continued to grow and enrollment grew to 350 students by the 1990s. As a result of growing enrollment, the school began the process of expanding again. In 1992, the school purchased in adjacent land as part of their plans to acquire neighboring properties to expand athletic facilities. This acquisition expanded Akiba to about of land. In October 1994, a committee for expanding the school found that the options to expand the school included expanding the school to the former Solomon Schecter Day School that was located across the street, moving to the campus of either Gratz College in Melrose Park or to a vacated high school in Conshohocken and constructing a third story onto the school. Akiba Hebrew Academy was named for Rabbi Akiba. The school was approached by the Perelman Family Foundation in 1999 and offered a $2.0 million donation on condition that the school change its name to honor the Perelman family. After vocal student objections, Akiba was compelled to decline the offer. In February 2007, the school accepted a gift of $5 million from Leonard and Lynne Barrack's charitable organization, the Barrack Foundation and renamed itself "Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy," after Leonard's older brother, who died in a plane crash at age 27 in 1960. The $5 million gift to the school was given under the condition that 90% of the funds will be allocated towards a scholarship fund. In September 2008, Barrack sold the property to the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia for $4 million. At the time of sale, the mansion measured , including additions made in the mid 1970s such as the gym, and the new classroom building. Kohelet Yeshiva High School purchased the mansion in 2010 and has since renovated it and the adjoining buildings.

For several years, Akiba was looking to move to a new location to help facilitate the school's growing enrollment and to ensure their facilities remained up to par with other private schools in the area. In July 2007, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia announced the purchase of the campus of American College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. The American College site is on Bryn Mawr Avenue in Radnor Township and contains six buildings, walking trails and an arboretum. In 2013, the Robert Saligman Middle School, which was located in Melrose Park, Pennsylvania and a part of the Schechter Day School Network, was integrated into Barrack. Barrack dedicated a new multipurpose, artificial turf athletic field with high school soccer and lacrosse lines in September 2018. Following stints with the Philadelphia 76ers and Portland Trail Blazers as an executive, the school hired Ben Falk to serve as Barrack's boy's varsity basketball coach. He coached the team from 2018 to 2021. Mrs. Sharon P. Levin served as the Head of School from 2011 to 2021. In 2021, she was replaced by Rabbi Marshall Lesack, a Barrack graduate, as the new Head of School. Barrack students in 11th grade have the option to study abroad for the first semester of school at Alexander Muss High School in Israel. Barrack students have studied at Muss since 1994. From the introduction of the Israel study option in the 1980s through 1993, students had attended Tichon Ramah Yerusalayim (T. R. Y.) in Jerusalem. Barrack men's and women's sports teams, the Cougars, play in the Friends’ Schools League. The school has 15 male and female varsity sports teams. Rabbi Marshall Lesack is the current head of school. He was preceded by Mr. Oscar Divinsky, Dr. Irving Agus, Mr. Lou Newman, Dr. Diana Reisman, Dr. Steven Lorch, Rabbi Marc Rosenstein, Rabbi Phillip Field, Dr. Steven Brown, and Mrs. Sharon P. Levin.