By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer

Beginning with the 2026-27 school year, Hillel Academy of Greater Dayton will have a new home. In January, the Jewish day school signed a contract with Temple Beth Or in Washington Township to lease space in the Reform congregation’s building.

Since 2010, Hillel has been based on the third floor of Beth Abraham Synagogue at Sugar Camp in Oakwood.

According to Hillel Principal Anna Smith and President Andy Schwartz, the move will provide the school with more classrooms and green space, and puts it in the middle of the highest concentration of Jewish households with school-age children in the Dayton area.

“We’re out of space here,” Smith says of the school’s current location. “We’ve been trying to get creative and make space where we could. We have our multipurpose room split into thirds because we’re out of classrooms.”

Hillel Academy’s current enrollment is 31 students from half-day pre-K through seventh grade; it will add an eighth-grade for the 2026-27 school year.

At Temple Beth Or, Hillel will share space with Makor, the temple’s religious school, which meets on Sundays.

“We’ll have all the rooms we need,” Smith says. “Rooms for us to dream and grow into and for us to play in. We’ll have a nice green space for the kids to run around in. We’ll have an outdoor prayer space, which is also beautiful. We’ll have a school garden, and we are koshering and will use the smaller kitchen by the school area where we can make school lunches and do cooking projects.”

She adds that most of Hillel’s families live in the Centerville/Washington Township/Kettering area.

“It makes more sense to be where more of our families are and where more of the Jewish community is,” she says. “We loved our time here at Beth Abraham. It’s been wonderful. They’ve been very gracious about the move. We thank them for that and will continue to partner with them.”

Established in 1961, Hillel Academy is a community Jewish day school that’s not connected to any particular movement of Judaism. Its families are Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform. “Every family’s practice is individual and personal and respectful, respected and celebrated,” Smith says.

Hillel also accepts EdChoice Scholarship student vouchers and admits qualified non-Jewish students to all grades.

To read the complete February 2026 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.