TAMPA, Fla. — With 16 dormer windows that peek out from all sides of the roof and a wrap-around porch, the building looks more like a place to relax than study. Shaded by a canopy of oaks, the only noise comes from chirping birds and water spraying from a fountain in a nearby pond.
“It’s very quiet out here,” said Rabbi Ariel Wohlfarth, one of two deans at Tampa Torah Academy, which opened two years ago in a building that once housed a day care center and community clubhouse for a leafy suburb of Tampa.
But through the front door was a buzz of activity. During a recent visit, kindergarten students seated at two tables worked on crayon 
drawings of their families. In another, a teacher prompted third graders to examine the text of “Charlotte’s Web” for clues about the characters. In a third room, older boys listen to a rabbi explain the importance of Israeli kings’ reigns as historical markers. Nearby, older girls learn the origin story of the prophet Samuel.
The school, whose mission is to offer an authentically Orthodox Jewish education, is one of only four Jewish day schools in the Tampa Bay area. Jewish day schools are booming in South Florida, and the greater Tampa Bay area is also seeing a resurgence after years of decline.
A report released this year by Teach Coalition and Step Up For Students showed that the number of Jewish schools in Florida nearly doubled over the past 15 years, boosted by parents using state school choice scholarships and the migration of families from New York.
The report attributes much of the enrollment decline in the Tampa Bay region to the 2010 closing of Pinellas County’s only Jewish day school. A casualty of the Great Recession, Pinellas County Jewish Day School could not secure enough operational funding from donors affected by stock market woes. At the same time, many families hit by the recession could no longer afford tuition, so enrollment dropped from more than 200 to 140.
The closing left the state’s second-largest Jewish population with few options: Hillel Academy in Tampa, which offers a track for Orthodox students but is also open to non-Jewish students, and Hebrew Academy of Tampa, a Montessori school for students in preschool through eighth grade. A charter Hebrew language school offered a Judaic after-school program but closed in 2013 after one year.
Eventually, the dearth of choices prompted parents seeking an Orthodox education for their children to contact Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim, also known as the Rabbinical Seminary of America. Based in Queens, New York, the organization starts Orthodox Jewish day schools across the United States. The organization had established successful schools in Orlando and Boca Raton.
“In most communities, there’s usually a Jewish day school that creates an environment that is completely Jewish,” said Rabbi Jeremy Rubenstein, who along with Wohlfarth is co-dean of Tampa Torah Academy. “And parents were looking for that, and it didn’t exist in Tampa.”
So, in 2022, Rubenstein, his wife, their kids, and eight other families moved to the Tampa Bay area to start an Orthodox school. A property search revealed the 10,000-square-foot building in a Tampa suburb that a day care center had recently vacated. After extensive renovations, they opened the school to 33 students in preschool through seventh grade. The wives of those who moved to Florida comprised most of the school staff. Two years later, school leaders added an eighth grade.
Tampa Torah Academy now has 80 students from more than 30 families. Some live within 15 to 20 minutes of the school, but most live closer to Tampa’s core. Some even come from Clearwater, a 36-mile trip that can expand to a two-hour drive during rush hour. Others drive up from Sun City Center in the southernmost part of the county, which is 40 miles from the school.
Leaders contracted with a busing service this year to provide transportation.
“We have students coming from all different, all sorts of places,” Rubenstein said.
This year, leaders expanded again, with high school programs for boys and girls. The boys are meeting at a Tampa Kollel and the girls at Tampa Torah Academy. Like the other Jewish schools, Tampa Torah Academy accepts Florida’s school choice scholarships.
“Switching our kids from public schools to TTA was one of the best decisions we made,” parent Danny Betesh said in a school video. “We love the fact that our kids came to TTA because of how warm it is, how they know everyone. They know the staff; they know the kids from all the grades…they feel like a family.”
Local Jewish leader Jeffrey Berger welcomes the expansion of education opportunities for Jewish families and says the uptick in school growth is expected as Jewish families move in from other states.
Before Tampa Torah Academy opened, “we had a gap in certain segments of the community,” said Berger, a retired real estate attorney and president of the Tampa Jewish Community Centers & Federation. “There was a need for their brand of Orthodox Judaic religious institution.”
He said Hillel Academy, which opened in 1970, plans to open a high school next year. Tamim Academy of Pinellas, which opened this year at the Chabad of Pinellas, also fills a void that existed for too long in that area.
Berger said he was excited to see 100 people turn out at a recent open house for Tampa Torah Academy. He believes families will continue to be drawn to the area for its warm climate and lower cost of living than its northern neighbors.
“The availability of scholarship money has certainly made all private schools more affordable, and I think Jewish day schools are a part of that,” he said. “Affordability is a big issue for a lot of people across the board, including those who want their children to have a Jewish education.”
