Orthodox Jewish day school serving nursery through 12th grade across Staten Island and Edison, New Jersey.
Rabbi Jacob Joseph School was established in 1903 by Rabbi Shmuel Yitzchok Andron and his son Raphael Joseph, named in honor of Rabbi Jacob Joseph, chief rabbi of New York City's Association of American Orthodox Hebrew Congregations. The school originally operated on Manhattan's Lower East Side with a rigorous Talmudic curriculum. After neighborhood changes and declining enrollment in younger grades, the school restructured in 1969, eventually relocating to Staten Island in 1976 and opening a high school branch in Edison, New Jersey in 1982.
The school is known for its rigorous Talmudic curriculum and Orthodox Jewish education. It serves students from nursery through eighth grade in Staten Island, with a separate high school and Beis Medrash (advanced study program) in Edison, New Jersey. Historically, the school produced hundreds of rabbis and community leaders and served as an important feeder institution for advanced yeshivas, particularly Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood.
The school produces a semi-annual scholarly publication, the Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society (The RJJ Journal), edited by rabbinic alumni. The journal explores major questions facing Jews through the prism of Torah values, examining biblical and Talmudic passages and contemporary rabbinic responsa.
The school has educated numerous prominent figures, including Nobel Prize laureate Robert Aumann (Economics, 2005), founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Marvin Hier, former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and human rights scholar Louis Henkin. Many alumni have become rosh yeshivas (heads of yeshivas) and rabbinic authorities.