Hebrew University High School

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The Hebrew University High School (Hebrew: התיכון שליד האוניברסיטה), commonly known as Leyada, is a six-year, secular, "experimental", academically-autonomous, semi-private secondary school. It is located next to the Hebrew University Givat-Ram campus in Jerusalem. Along with the Haifa Hebrew Reali School, it is considered one of the best high schools in Israel. Founded in 1935 as "Beit-Hakerem High School", it soon established a unique methodology and syllabus, carefully screening applicants through psychotechnical entrance exams.

The school is one of the few in Israel to employ a five-day week (Sunday through Thursday), keeping facilities open on Fridays for self-study. In addition to the 25+ classrooms, facilities include two 200 seat lecture halls, fully-equipped physics and chemistry laboratories, a library, a chamber-music auditorium, a 600-seat theatre, and a regulation-size basketball court.

Over the years, the school has carried out several integration projects in response to accusations of social elitism. However, due to its semi-private status, Leyada's students still majorly come from middle- and upper-class families.

The current principal is Dr. Gilad Amir (class of 1970), who joined faculty in 1977 as a math teacher, and took the top position in 2003 from 35-year veteran Hannah Levita. Among the school's board of directors is Labor-Meimad party's Orna Angel, a 1980 Leyada graduate and currently a CEO of two major corporations.

[edit] Notable alumni

• Yitzhak Navon (class of 1939) - fifth President of Israel
• Daniel Kahneman (1951) - awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics
• Aharon Barak (1954) - professor of law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, lecturer in law at the Yale Law School, President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 1995 to 2006
• Yehoram Gaon (1956) - singer and actor
• David Gross (1959) - awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics
• Tom Segev (1963) - journalist, and historian
• Meir Shalev (1966) - writer
• Yohai Ben-Nun (1942) - sixth commander of the Israeli Sea Corps
• David Grossman (1972) - author of fiction, nonfiction, and youth and children's literature

[edit] External links

• Hebrew University High School website
• Name droppers
• Israel's teenage volunteers carry on valuable tradition
• Peretz stars in high school civics lesson
• Prestigious Jerusalem high school opens its doors city-wide, ushering in conflict in the process
• Jerusalem Post article, "Jerusalem students model their own version of the United Nations"

Coordinates: 31°46′50″N, 35°11′49″E