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Breaking with tradition, elite NYC school adds a second entrance exam date to accommodate Jewish families
(New York Jewish Week) — Hunter College High School, a prestigious middle and high school in Manhattan, has added a second date for its entrance exam after a Jewish parent complained that the test was scheduled for the eve of Passover.
Hunter spokesperson Vince Dimiceli told the New York Jewish Week that he believes this is the first time the school has offered a second test date.
Hunter College High School, which runs from seventh to 12th grade, is a coveted destination for many New York City students. Because the school is run by Hunter College, an affiliate of the City University of New York, it is free to attend.
Its three-hour entrance exam is invitation-only, and is open only to students whose grades or scores on state tests in English and math exceed a high threshold. The school does not admit anyone after seventh grade, so the exam is students’ only chance to gain acceptance to Hunter.
Erica Rahavy, a Jewish parent, told the Jewish Week before the second test date was announced that her son was invited to take the exam, but was dismayed to see that it fell on April 5, the morning preceding the first Seder night of Passover. Although the test does not fall on the holiday itself, which begins at sundown, Rahavy said the school “has to understand that families travel to be with their families on the holidays.”
Hunter’s decision to add a second date to allow for Passover preparation reflects increasing sensitivity to religious observance at New York City schools, which have begun in recent years to close for a broad range of religious holidays. And it speaks to the particular sensitivities around Jewish practice in a city where Jews still make up more than 10% of the population. At the same time, the incident reflects how religious Jewish parents still contend with making sometimes difficult choices around holiday observance.
“I have no problem missing the day of school for my kids,” Rahavy said. “We’ve done that before to celebrate holidays with our families. It shouldn’t be quite so high-stakes that it’s just this one day or nothing.”
In an email sent to Hunter’s admissions office last week and obtained by the Jewish Week, Rahavy wrote that her family has plans to travel on April 5 and asked if the school offered an “alternate time for students celebrating the holiday.”
The school’s response, sent yesterday, was terse: “The Entrance Exam will only be held on Wednesday, April 5, 2023 in the morning and students have about three hours to complete the exam. HCCS is unable to administer make-up exams.”
Upon receiving Hunter’s response, Rahavy was worried that she would be forced to “decide to have my son take this exam or have a holiday with our family, which isn’t really a choice we should be asked to make.”
Soon afterward, however, the school changed its answer. As of Wednesday, a note on Hunter’s admissions website read, “An alternate test date for religious observance on Tuesday afternoon, April 4, 2023, held at Hunter College, will be made available upon request.”
A day earlier, that line had not appeared on the site. But Dimiceli told the Jewish Week, ‘[W]e always knew we would need to make accommodations. That was not reflected on the Campus School website. It is so now.”
Rahavy did not immediately respond to a request for comment about her reaction to the additional test date. But speaking to the Jewish Week before the date was added, she said accommodating a widely observed Jewish holiday in New York City felt like a clear choice.
“I can’t imagine they would have planned this out on Christmas Eve when families travel to be with each other for the holidays,” she said.
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The post Breaking with tradition, elite NYC school adds a second entrance exam date to accommodate Jewish families appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.