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Greensboro News and Record

Greensboro News & Record (NC)

February 15, 2004 ACADEMY: MOLDING FUTURE LEADERS
ORGANIZERS OF THE AMERICAN HEBREW ACADEMY SPARED NO EXPENSE
IN CREATING AN ATMOSPHERE FOR STUDENTS TO EMBRACE THEIR
FAITH. BUT ITS FOUNDER IS EMBROILED IN A BILLION-DOLLAR FRAUD
CASE THAT COULD JEOPARDIZE THE SCHOOL'S FINANCIAL STABILITY.
Author: MARGARET MOFFETT BANKS Staff Writer Edition: ALL
Section: GENERAL NEWS
Page: A1
Dateline: GREENSBORO Estimated printed pages:            7

Article Text:
Lior Gilo knows how good she's got it. The 17-year-old is sitting in a hallway, a
school-issued laptop balanced on her knee. She has the world at her fingertips
at the American Hebrew Academy, where computerized microscopes, wireless
Internet access, interactive chalkboards that project online encyclopedias and
Israeli TV in every classroom are part of the school day."In the beginning, we
were like, 'Oh my God, this stuff is so crazy,"' said Lior, a senior and the
student body president. "For me, I'm still amazed."

 Six years ago, it was little more than one man's dream: Take 100 acres off
Hobbs Road and build an elite boarding school - the Jewish Exeter, the Jewish
Andover, the Jewish equivalent of New England prep schools famous for
producing Fortune-500 CEOs. Hire Frank Lloyd Wright's partner as the campus
architect. Import Jerusalem stone for every building. Stock classrooms with
technology direct from Silicon Valley.!  And above all, nurture future Jewish
leaders so they may always retain their Jewish identity. Today, the academy is
considered one of America's top Jewish schools, a place where students receive
an Ivy League education in a Jewish-centered setting.

But the school's financial stability might be in jeopardy because of a
billion-dollar fraud case, which could be settled this month. Attorneys claim
Maurice "Chico" Sabbah of Greensboro built the academy with $104 million
"wrongfully diverted" from three Japanese insurers who were clients of Sabbah's
Fortress Re reinsurance company. Sabbah has denied the charges, but his
lawyers are participating in settlement talks. Lawyers for the insurers are coy
about how they hope to recover the money. Cliff Schoenberg, an attorney for
one Japanese company, won't say what his clients want - cash, land, buildings.
But what he does say makes clear his position: The Japanese want their money
back. The company! is "respectful of the fact (the academy) is an institution
that's try ing to do good," he said. "That obviously will be taken into account."

 Built for success Springsong Cooper's dorm room is dark, save the florescent
light brightening her desk. It's midmorning and she's finishing homework,
making use of the one open period that's built into students' schedules every
other day. Springsong, 17, hails from Republic, Wash., population 954. The
nearest synagogue is three hours away. Before arriving at the academy, she
spoke little Hebrew. She never attended a Jewish service until a week before
her bat mitzvah, a ceremony marking the passage from childhood. And as the
only Jewish children in town, Springsong and her younger brother, Lev, had no
outlet for Jewish activities and social events. So, they attended Christian camps
with friends, sharing their Judaism with others students only on holidays. "I was
always in the position where I felt a little out of place," she said. It was for
children like Springsong that the academy was created.

In 1998, organizers announced plans to turn $8.3 million worth of land into a
lavish boarding school, with million-dollar dorms, highly trained teachers,
classrooms wired with the latest technology. Architect Aaron Green unveiled a
Prairie-style design that's textbook Frank Lloyd Wright, including light-filled
classrooms and green roofs. Trustees would say only that the money - there
would need to be lots for their ambitious plan - was coming from a "small group
of anonymous donors." Yet many in Greensboro's tight-knit Jewish community
suspected Chico Sabbah was bankrolling the project almost exclusively,
something tax and court records later revealed.

Between 1997 and 2000, records show, the academy received $99.6 million,
most from Sabbah's private charity and an anonymous fund he established.
Sabbah declined to be interviewed for this article but allowed his daughter to
give a tour of the normally intensely private school grounds. Few people in
Greensboro have visited the campus, heavily guarded by Greensboro police,
private security officers and a black metal gate that surrounds the school. Even
fewer people understand why Sabbah built the academy, the nation's only
boarding school for non-Orthodox Jews. It was his deep love of his Jewish faith
and tradition, and a fear that fewer and fewer young people were embracing it,
said his daughter, academy spokeswoman Leeor Sabbah. "He wanted to create
an environment where (students) could feel tied to Judaism,'' she said. "Part of
the vision of Mr. Sabbah is to create an environment to nurture future Jewish
leaders of the world."

Springsong, whose interest in Judaism spiked after her bat mitzvah, learned
about the academy through a brochure. She said she was reluctant to leave
Republic, filled with her family and lifelong friends. But she was more reluctant
to leave her interest in Judaism unexplored. "Something was missing," she said.
"I never knew what it was." For that very reason, Judaism is the heart of
campus life. The academy "keeps Kosher," meaning there is strict separation of
meat and dairy products, a religious tradition not every Jew observes. Students
must attend Sabbath services on Friday nights, along with daily prayer
meetings. Those with shaky Hebrew must practice until they become fluent
enough to chant prayers. And juniors spend 12 weeks in Israel, studying and
practicing their Hebrew as they explore the country. The academy offers what it
calls a "dual curriculum," which includes traditional and Jewish-centered course
work. Students enroll in seven classes a semester, three more than the average
Guilford County student taking a block-style schedule. Hebrew-language and
Judaic study courses are mandatory, as is the two-hour study hall Sunday
through Thursday nights . It all makes for long school days - squeezing in
religious observances, sports and classroom studies, which happen around
teardrop-shaped tables designed to inspire debate. Dori Chandler, one of 22
day students, often doesn't come home until after 6 p.m., said mother Marilyn
Chandler. Chandler, head of Greensboro's thriving Jewish federation, likens the
curriculum to the International Baccalaureate program, a rigorous slate of
college-prep courses taken by top students. "She studies all the time," Chandler
said of her daughter's life after school.

The academy's academic standards are so high that a student who succeeds
there "can walk into any college and be socially, academically and theologically
light-years ahead of their peers," said Marc Kramer, head of RAVSAK, an
association of U.S. Jewish day schools. He credits a slow, measured plan for
growth for the school's success. Instead of opening with 800 students, the
academy's long-term goal, officials are gradually increasing enrollment, building
dorms and classrooms as needed. Most of all, he credits Chico Sabbah, who
never strayed from his original goal: building the best Jewish school money
could buy. "It's absolutely unique as an educational experience for the American
Jewish community," said Kramer, whose organization represents 25,000
students. "He just stuck to his guns. I think it's heroic."

Each of the five $1.7 million dorms includes spacious rooms for roughly 20
students. Because administrators believe in strict supervision of students, each
dorm includes a 2,200-square-foot apartment for house parents, with four
bedrooms and granite countertops. The headmaster will live on campus, too - in
a $472,000 house being built this year. Visitors aren't allowed to drive far past
the entrance gate; gas-powered vehicles aren't allowed on campus for
environmental and security reasons. Students either walk or ride
electric-powered golf carts along the winding, wooded paths between buildings.
They're driven off-campus in a school-owned shuttle. And talk about
supervision: Teachers have technology to monitor students' use of the Internet
in their classroom by viewing the images on their screens. As for Springsong -
she's become quite well-versed in Hebrew, though she's reluctant to call herself
fluent. She adores attending the mandatory services and treasures her three
months in Israel, where she soaked up Jewish culture and, albeit briefly,
considered becoming a rabbi. "None of these things would have been available
to me back home," she said.

Weathering the lawsuit storm Sabbah, 75, made his fortune through Fortress Re
- the "Re" stands for reinsurance. He and partner Kenneth Kornfeld managed an
aviation-reinsurance "pool,'' a risk-sharing insurance group, for three Japanese
companies. Those companies paid premiums to Fortress Re, which was expected
to use that money to pay claims if any airplanes crashed.

On Sept. 11, 2001, one day after the academy opened, terrorists crashed four
airplanes, all insured by Fortress Re's pool. The Japanese companies say in
multiple lawsuits that Sabbah and Kornfeld spent the money they were
supposed to save for such an event. Fortress Re shareholders deny the charge.
But in December, an arbitration panel found Fortress Re guilty of defrauding one
of the companies, Sompo Insurance Co., and ordered Fortress Re to pay $1.1
billion. Fortress Re has paid $265 million to Sompo and the two other Japanese
companies. All three expect to receive hundreds of millions more through a
settlement, which could be reached in late February, said Sompo attorney
Schoenberg.

It's unclear whether Sabbah and Kornfeld will use their personal fortunes to pay
the settlement. Schoenberg said "there's no accusation that the American
Hebrew Academy acted improperly," only that Fortress Re gave the academy
"illicitly gotten gains" the Japanese want back.

 His tone changes when he mentions multimillion-dollar geothermal wells buried
under the soccer field - the largest of their kind in the United States and the
source of the academy's water. "It appears that's where they spent all the pool
members' money," he  said. The settlement does inspire thoughts of an
"incongruity," as one British insurance publication wrote in November: "the
Japanese owning the first ever American Hebrew boarding school." But it's
unlikely the Japanese will take over the school; there won't be a Sompo
Academy in Greensboro, Schoenberg said. Meanwhile, trustees are moving
forward - building an $11.6 million athletics center and pool, aggressively
recruiting students, advertising jobs for teachers and house parents. Sabbah's
lawyers won't discuss the pending settlement or what that settlement might
mean for the academy.

Leeor Sabbah said its future will be unchanged regardless of the outcome of her
father's legal problems, with one exception: Leaders are seeking high-dollar
donors in America and abroad. "My father isn't the only one who feels strongly
about Jewish education," she said of "endowment opportunities" being created
for donors. "There's no concern, just a realignment of finances." In a 2002
interview for Forbes magazine with Greensboro writer Ed Cone, Sabbah said the
school had $50 million in the bank, which would cover 10 years of operating
expenses. He also told Cone he would leave his estate to the academy. What is
left unspoken is that Sabbah, the school's primary benefactor, might not have
as many millions to donate once the settlement is complete. So, the academy's
first-ever development campaign begins as expectations for the school, and the
stakes for its future, have never been higher.

Contact Margaret Moffett Banks at 373-7031 or mba...@news-record.com
Caption:
Leeor Sabbah says her father, Maurice, had a vision of creating ''an environment
to nurture future Jewish leaders of the world.''
 PHOTOS BY JOSEPH RODRIGUEZ/ News & Record Seniors Clare Hyre (left, on
the floor) and Lior Gilo (far right) work alongside another student in the hallway
of the Classroom Building at the American Hebrew Academy in Greensboro.
There are 102 students attending the school.
 Students take part in a Jewish Studies class at the American Hebrew Academy.
The school is the first liberal, pluralistic Jewish boarding school for
non-Orthodox Jews in the United States.
 Instead of opening with 800 students, the American Hebrew Academy officials'
long-term goal, officials will gradually increase enrollment and build dorms and
classrooms only as needed. Stone from Jerusalem was imported to be used
throughout the construction of the school.
 Springsong Cooper, a senior at the academy, studies in her dorm room.
Well-versed in He! brew, she conducted morning prayers during winter break
back home in Republic, Wash. As a junior, Springsong spent 12 weeks studying
in Israel, a requirement for all students.
 DOUG COX/ News & Record
 AMERICAN HEBREW ACADEMYMug Photo; Photos; Map Graphic Copyright (c)
2004 Greensboro News & Record
Record Number:            0402150096

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