Since its founding nearly 60 years ago, CESJDS has not had an Assistant Head of School. However, that changed on May 16 when Julie Horowitz began as JDS’ first Assistant Head of School for Institutional Advancement and Strategy.
The necessity for this role was based on the “operational side” of JDS, according to Head of School
Rabbi Mitchel Malkus. JDS wants to bring in more students and share more about JDS around the community, which they hope that this role will help them to achieve. Horowitz will be responsible for overseeing the admissions, marketing and fundraising departments. She will help JDS strategize how to gain more students, raise money for the school and continue to grow.
“We want to engage the broader community more in what’s going on in JDS,” Malkus said. “…We think that bringing [Horowitz] on and then bringing all of those departments together, but integrating that with what’s happening educationally, will allow us to do that better.”
For the past 30 years, Horowitz has been working in education and philanthropy. Towards the beginning of her career, Horowitz worked in New York City in the public school system and in education
non-profits. For the last 15 years, she led her own consulting firm that focused on education and philanthropy.
According to Horowitz, there were two main factors that interested her in the job at JDS. One of these factors was her long background in education, fundraising and external engagement work. Additionally, during the COVID -19 pandemic, Horowitz switched herchildren from public school to Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School of the Nation’s Capital. Since then, she has seen how impactful the day school experience has been to her whole family, especially after the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.
“This opportunity felt like this really interesting merger of my professional background and experiences, with my personal passions and identity, at a time where it really felt important,” Horowitz said.
Director of Upper School Admissions Wendi Kaplan hopes that Horowitz’s background in strategizing will allow the admissions team to better understand what schools their applicants are coming from, and what other schools they can pull new applicants from.
“There’s been a lot of interest this year, especially after Oct. 7, from families coming from MCPS [Montgomery County Public Schools] or other independent schools,” Kaplan said. “I think one
of our goals is always getting out into the community and out into the Jewish community and other feeder schools so we can give them the information about our school and just making more people aware of how amazing JDS is.”
In this role, Horowitz hopes to increase enrollment of families who may have never considered Jewish day school before. Additionally, she hopes to increase individuals’, funders’ and the Jewish community’s financial commitment to JDS.
“This moment in the Jewish community is a really important one for just leaning into the role of Jewish education and embracing pluralism … really educating the next generation of Jewish leaders that we need,” Horowitz said.
