Brandeis Hebrew Academy Is Now Lev Jewish Academy

By Jewish Compass

LAWRENCE, N.Y. — The day school at 25 Frost Lane has carried the name of a Supreme Court justice since 1945. This autumn it opened under a different one. Brandeis Hebrew Academy is now Lev Jewish Academy, and on Thursday 15 October 2026 it held a grand opening and dedication ceremony to mark the change.

The school's own announcement begins "Formerly Brandeis Hebrew Academy" and credits a partnership with the Leviev Foundation, with the philanthropist Lev Leviev, and with Chagit Sofiev, chief executive of Leviev Group USA, who is now the school's president. Raz Levin is head of school. The partnership is presented as funding financial assistance for families, and as helping families move children out of public school and into Jewish day school. "Lev Jewish Academy is more than a new name," the announcement closes.

Lev Leviev attended the dedication in Lawrence with his wife, Olga, and was presented with a proclamation by the mayor of the Village of Lawrence, Samuel Nahmias. At the start of June the Leviev Foundation announced a separate five-year, $50 million scholarship initiative for Jewish children from underserved and immigrant communities; no figure has been published for this school.

What the name means

The school has not said that it is named after anyone. Lev — לב — is the Hebrew word for heart, and the school's own pages use it that way: the best way to understand Lev, one of them says, is to walk its halls. Whether the name reads as the Hebrew word or as the family's, the school has left both open.

Ninety-six years, three names

The school was founded in 1930 in Far Rockaway, as the Jewish Center School, by Rabbi Irving Miller. It became The Brandeis School in 1945, when it moved to Congregation Sons of Israel in Woodmere and took the name of Justice Louis D. Brandeis; later it was Brandeis Hebrew Academy. The partnership that established Lev Jewish Academy dates from July 2026, three months before the public ceremony.

What has not changed

The address is the same: 25 Frost Lane, in the Village of Lawrence. So is the telephone number, 516-371-4747. The school remains co-ed and Modern Orthodox, running a dual Torah and General Studies curriculum from nursery and pre-K through eighth grade, with an eighth-grade trip to Israel. The old brandeisha.org now redirects to levjewishacademy.org, and some of the school's own vendor links still carry the Brandeis name.

A note on how the school is described elsewhere: COLlive reported the dedication as part of the Ohr Avner USA network, and 5 Towns Central named JIQ Schools as a further partner. The school's own site says neither; it describes itself only as Modern Orthodox. We have listed it that way.

Photo: Lev Jewish Academy, from the school's own announcement of the dedication.