Purim is always a special day at Abrams, with the students — some of whom do not celebrate Purim at home — coming in costume and hearing the Megillah at school

While the Abrams Hebrew Academy in Yardley, Pennsylvania didn’t run a special recruitment drive, somehow the school drew 55 new students this year.

The reason was quite simple: The private school opened while the public schools did not, so Jewish parents made the decision to switch their children to the Orthodox institution. Purim is always a special day at Abrams, with the students — some of whom do not celebrate Purim at home — coming in costume and hearing the Megillah at school. This year, due to the strict social distancing guidelines and the increase in students, the ceremony was taken outside, where Rabbi Yehoshua Ottensoser read the Megillah for all of them.

On a late winter morning in a small town in Pennsylvania, the resounding reminder that “the memory will not cease from their children” was heard, with fifty-five new neshamos — most of whom have already registered for next year — listening to it for the very first time.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 851)