A Life To Live...

by Israel Kipen

  During Meretz’ headmastership, the school reached Grade Six and had to relinquish hold on its pupils for them to seek their secondary education elsewhere. As a matter of policy, we recommended to parents that they send their children to Mount Scopus College, thereby encouraging them to pursue their secondary education in a Jewish environment. It soon became clear from reports of our pupils at Mount Scopus College that not only did they shine in their Hebrew knowledge but that their general standards compared more than satisfactorily with those of their new classmates. Mount Scopus teachers could identify former Bialik pupils in their classes without having formally to ascertain where they were from. This was, of course, a most rewarding reflection upon Bialik and a source of pride. However, human nature being what it is, it could not for long be satisfied by existing attainments. Success was a breeder of confidence, and this, in turn, pushed one on to further challenges and demands. Thus, Moshe Meretz proposed that the school should consider expanding into Junior Secondary years. The educational arguments for doing so were persuasive, not only because of the school’s record to-date, but also in consideration of the children’s ages at this level of education. It was considered unfair that children should be moved to a new social environment at a time when they were preparing for their respective Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs which they were entitled to celebrate in familiar settings. Whether this in itself was a sufficient consideration or the ambition of every professional person worth his or her salt to prove themselves, all factors taken together combined to make a strong case towards planning the next stage in the further development of the school.

  The opinion of the executive and committee was not unanimous on the issue. Joseph Solvey, who had been a senior member of the executive since its inception, argued against expansion into a secondary school. His fear of the economic burdens that would follow such a move outweighed all other considerations. The majority of the other members, however, favoured such extension. I understood this support for the venture to imply a clear commitment by those parents to have their own children continue at Bialik. My own attitude in favour of further development was shaped by an additional consideration. I reasoned that if Bialik College was to prove itself philosophically – and ideologically – it could not do so through the primary levels alone. Children who would leave Bialik College at the age of 11 or 12 would in the long term not recognise the difference between one concept of Jewish schooling and another. It was only at secondary level that a school could begin to make any impact on pupils with its particular philosophical, religious and spiritual bent. Hence, to forego the establishment of a secondary level was to fall short of the very purpose behind the school’s creation in the first place. Therefore, the Bialik committee voted in favour of expansion and in 1969 the first Year Seven opened.

  The man who, in 1970, replaced Moshe Meretz was Shlomo Uni. Once again, the difference in personalities between the retiring and incoming headmasters was as striking as that between Meretz and Chovers before him. Shlomo Uni was small in stature, self-effacing and had a clever twinkle in his eyes. He was also modest in manner, intense in his convictions and fully alert to the task he was undertaking. He saw himself as a pioneer breaking new ground for modern and progressive Jewish education. His beaming smile quickly endeared him to the parent body, whose support he mustered when it was most needed – at a time when the school was wrestling with new problems regarding its future.

  Bialik College 1973 “Speech Night”; Shlomo Uni (principal).

  The most pressing issue for Bialik in the early ’seventies were those of space and facilities. The limit imposed by the Board of Appeal on the number of children we were permitted to accommodate at Shakespeare Grove forced our hand. The school had a sound scholastic record. Its popularity with the community was constantly growing. The participation by its children and their display of fluency in Hebrew at Israel Independence Day celebrations were envied by other schools. But parents expected standards of classrooms and playing fields comparable with those of Mount Scopus College. Accordingly, the over-riding preoccupation of the school’s committee became the search for suitable real estate. The more the committee looked, the more obvious it became that any locale found in the inner Melbourne area would be subject to the same limitations already operating on the existing premises. No open land could be found commensurate with our understanding of the needs of the school or expectations of the parents. Moreover, during the decade that had passed since Bialik had opened at Shakespeare Grove, City Councils had tightened considerably their policy of granting permits to schools in inner areas, and, unless premises were found where a school had previously existed, the likelihood of obtaining permission to establish a new school in a built-up area was virtually nil. This consideration, coupled with the fact that property values priced existing school premises out of the affordable range, forced us to look at the outer suburbs where many and large vacant lots were still available. We also had to take into account the geographic distribution of Melbourne’s Jewish population. The school was offered land belonging to the Gas Company in Nepean Highway, opposite the site of the present Southland Shopping Centre, but this was considered unsuitable. Having regard to the locale from which the school’s children came, it was more logical to look east, more specifically along the Burwood Highway extension of Toorak Road. We contacted estate-agents in the outer area, and after a while were offered ten acres of land fronting Burwood Highway in Wantirna. The position was absolutely magnificent. With the Dandenong Mountains in the background, the air clean and its rustic environment still unspoiled, the property presented an idyllic setting for a school. Adjacent to it, at the corner of Burwood Highway and Cathie Road, the government owned 140 acres of land ear-marked for a tertiary education institution and officially designated “Education Park”. The Whitlam Government was then in office and Mr Race Mathews was the Federal Member for Wantirna. The City of Knox, in which the property lay, was eager to have a private school developed there and promised us every assistance.

  There was one major drawback with the property, and that was its distance from the inner centres of living. In terms of actual travel time, the land lay a mere seven minutes further than Mount Scopus College. This extra distance was not thought to be of such magnitude as to counteract the area’s obvious attractions. But as the news of the land under consideration became public knowledge among parents, there rose a swell of vocal opposition to it on those very grounds of distance. Remarkably, the very parents who had demanded open spaces and playing fields were the first detractors of the idea once it seemed to come within our reach. The committee wrestled with the plan for a considerable while. Repeatedly, its members would go out on Sunday mornings to inspect the land, to walk among the neglected apple-trees and admire the setting, and eye one another quizzically to determine whether we were getting any nearer to making a decision. No-one was prepared to ignore the issue of distance. But, against this, the attractiveness of the setting, the reasonableness of the price and the potential for developing a high-school there for some 800 pupils with full, and even enthusiastic, municipal approval were all factors weighing in its favour. We invited the architect, Joshua Pila, to inspect the land, and he too tendered a positive report on its suitability for our purposes. As we inched nearer to the realisation that we must make a firm decision lest some developer pre-empted us in its purchase, the committee elected to call a General Meeting of parents to discuss the plan. Many parents attended and the atmosphere was tense. I chaired the meeting. On analysing the arguments of those who argued against the Wantirna idea, it occurred to me that they were more prompted by considerations of personal convenience than by any particular concern over the long-term development of the school. Some of them were sending their children to Bialik solely for the kindergarten period; others also had no intention of keeping their children there past the primary grades. Their motivations, it struck me further, were in diametric opposition to the thinking and planning purposes of the school executive. I
t thus became obvious that we would not be able to act by consensus. The more I saw through the real reasons for such opposition as was voiced, the more strengthened did I become in my resolve to proceed with the venture. What I failed to recognise at the meeting was that while there was a sizeable vocal opposition to the scheme, there was no matching number of parents who vocally endorsed the scheme. I took this relative silence as affirmation. I was correct in that conclusion only to a degree.

  The meeting did not help to galvanise the resolve of the executive. Most of its members being parents themselves, they must have had feedback from the wider parent community – which I did not receive – and hence remained ambivalent. My own inclination was to believe that once the decision was made and the school erected, parents would come to appreciate the new facilities, and these would out-weigh all other considerations. Mindful also of the buoyancy of the real-estate market – and reasoning further that, if necessary, we could always re-sell it, possibly at a profit – I feared that we might miss out on a sound opportunity if I let the executive procrastinate over a decision. Thus, we elected in the end to buy the land and bought it in 1972 for $147,000.

  Given the pressure for space at the Hawthorn school, once we were in possession of the property at Wantirna, development became irresistible. Joshua Pila prepared a master-plan, and a scale model was commissioned to give our vision a tangible perspective. It looked beautiful and we warmed to the idea. Negotiations with our bankers resulted in securing the necessary funds for the first stage of development, and Joshua Pila was authorised to prepare full drawings for the first building. The design he submitted was a novel one. It consisted of a two-storey rectangular building surrounding an inner open courtyard. The classrooms were large, and he incorporated into his plan all the facilities that had been lacking for so long. An application was lodged with the Schools Commission for funding of the project, and the sum of $160,000 was voted by the government as its contribution to the $500,000 that construction of the building was to cost. Because the government participated in the funding, it appointed a supervisor to watch the progress of the project. Tenders were called and the contract was awarded to Mr D. Shallit’s Construction Engineering firm. Before actual building could begin, a major program of ground preparation had to be undertaken. The orchard had to be uprooted and the land laid out with a network of underground agriculture pipes, an elaborate drainage system, and gardens, paths, playing fields, parking areas and other amenities. This phase took several months to complete and absorbed 20% of the total cost of the first stage of development. Once building started, it proceeded as anticipated, marred, however, by a building workers’ strike, which was not unusual.

  The development of the Wantirna site had both positive and negative consequences. On the positive side, the school’s parent community could see the promises made by the school materialising, while the prospects of modern facilities and open playing grounds in such a magnificent setting excited the imaginations of some of the parents. On the negative side of the ledger, however, those parents who opposed the project made up their mind to withdraw their children. The effect of their decisions was to sway other, wavering, parents to follow suit.

  In addition to these sequelae, another additional consequence followed Bialik College’s decision to move to Wantirna. The Liberal Congregation had, for some time been debating the idea of establishing a day-school of its own. Rabbi Levi was at the time himself a satisfied Bialik parent, but opposed the move to Wantirna. By sheer coincidence of events and timing, the Rabbis Levi-Fox camp won the battle within the Liberal movement to establish a school and had the extraordinary good fortune of finding a suitable property, the Bible House in Kooyong Road, Malvern, which was registered with the City Council as a school and which had just then come up for sale. They bought the property and opened a new sub-primary and primary school right in the heart of the area from which many of Bialik College’s pupils came. Inevitably, with parents free to weigh up the encumbrance of sending their children to Wantirna against the sheer convenience of delivering them to one in the immediate neighbourhood, the newly-opened King David School gained where Bialik College lost out.

  Shlomo Uni served as Principal for four years and returned to Israel in 1974. By that time, the character and spirit of Bialik College was firmly established. Its distinctiveness from other existing schools was recognised and appreciated by the community at large. When we faced the problem of replacing Mr Uni, we had to face the fact, too, that the lack of continuity beyond four years at a time in the professional leadership of the school could only have adverse effects. By then, the original reasons which had prompted us to seek a headmaster from Israel were less compelling. Circumstances had changed. The school now had a junior Secondary school which it had not had before, while further extension into higher classes was also considered. Such expansion at that stage of the school’s existence could not be carried out with an impermanent headmaster. I faced a dilemma. My intuition was that it was time for a radical re-orientation in the internal leadership structure of the school. However, the large financial commitments incurred by the school, the uncertainties engendered by the possible split within the parent body, and the concern that the division of the school into two campuses, with the kindergartens and first two grades remaining in Shakespeare Grove, would require internal stability, persuaded me to postpone the break with established convention, and to seek out for one more term a principal from Israel. Shlomo Uni was thus in 1974 succeeded by Yehezkiel Meiri.

  The arrival of Meiri and his wife Barbara coincided with an unsettling period at the school with the arguments over Wantirna still very audible. There were Bialik parents who continued actively to canvass anti-school sentiments, even though they had already determined to withdraw their children, giving little thought to the harm they were doing the school. It was scarcely an auspicious beginning for a new headmaster.

  No sooner did the Meiris find their feet in their new milieu than the transfer of a part of the school to Wantirna had to be set in motion. The move took place during the second term vacations in August 1974, with fewer pupils than anticipated, particularly in the Junior Secondary division. Those children who did attend Wantirna loved their new environment immensely. To travel an extra ten minutes in the bus beyond Mount Scopus College was no problem to them; they enjoyed the ride. What was more, they looked forward to the spaciousness of the new surroundings, the fresh air and the beautiful scenery around them. Soon, we received reports from parents that their children were returning home, ravenous. Apparently the clean rustic air in which they spent the day markedly increased their appetites as though they were perpetually in a holiday setting.

  A visit by Moshe Dayan to Bialik College at Wantirna. From left; Y. Meiri (principal) J. Solvey, C. Edwards, M. Dayan, the author, J. Pila.

  Nineteen seventy-five passed, and the beginning of 1976 saw the same shortfall in numbers as before in that some parents did not send their children on to Wantirna, this stultifying the growth of the Upper Primary and Secondary divisions. The truth then began to sink in. Our argument – that the property at Wantirna was a mere seven minutes further away than Mount Scopus College – had overlooked a very basic detail; namely, that when Mount Scopus College bought its Burwood property and moved there, it had also done so against substantial parental opposition, but it had had no competition to worry about. If parents had wanted a Jewish education for their children, then they had to quell all objections. I had drawn upon that fact to persuade myself that, ultimately, the same would happen with the dissent of Bialik parents. But I had not reckoned with the alternatives that then existed.

  We came increasingly to realise that the Wantirna experiment would not succeed. For me it was a moment of very bitter truth, for I had been the prime mover of the entire venture and I could not escape the moral responsibility for what was looming as a failure. The 1977 school year again brought an enrolment below expectations, and the fact could no longer be ignored. What was remark
able, however, was that despite the school’s stunted growth, its finances were maintained. Those were times when all private schools benefited from government subsidies for recurring expenses, without which not even the most solidly established school could carry its financial burdens alone. Just the same, while we coped with the financial aspects of running the school, the problem of its lack of growth nagged at me, robbing me of peace of mind and challenging my sense of communal responsibility. I kept asking myself repeatedly how we could now turn things around. To abandon the physical space and comfort of Wantirna would be a regressive step; on the other hand, where could one find comparable facilities in Melbourne’s inner suburbs in the late ‘70s, and, what was more, to find these at an affordable price? This dilemma taxed me constantly, and was superimposed on some other major decisions of a private nature I had to make at the time.

  The next year, 1978, was the last of Yehezkiel Meiri’s tenure as principal. Deliberations over his replacement brought back the problem we had faced four years earlier, but far more starkly. For, despite the limited growth at the upper level of the College, the conviction grew among us that we must aim at a complete secondary school to meet the wishes of those parents who wanted their children to continue at Bialik. That year was thus destined to be one of far-reaching decision-making for Bialik College. It was also, still unbeknown to me, to be a year that held in store a terrible family problem for us.