The school that serves Savannah’s Jewish children is reclaiming its old digs.
Rambam Day School will relocate this fall from the Jewish Educational Alliance building on Abercorn Street near DeRenne Avenue to the former site of the Savannah Hebrew Day School adjacent to the Congregation Bnai Brith Jacob.
The Chatham County-Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission approved a general development plan for the new campus during Tuesday’s meeting.
“We’re going back to where we used to be,” attorney Harold Yellin told the MPC board.
The new school will be composed of three large modular buildings Rambam is acquiring from Savannah Country Day School. The modulars will be placed atop permanent foundations and there are no current plans to construct a new facility on the site.
All of Rambam’s approximately 100 students, ranging in age from 2 years old to eighth-grade, will be housed at the new campus, according to principal Ester Rabhan. Rambam will lease the property from the Savannah Jaycees Foundation.
Rambam has provided primary school education for Jewish children of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform backgrounds since 1990. The new campus was home to the Savannah Hebrew Day School in the 1970s.
The Savannah Hebrew Day School opened in 1962 — the principal’s husband, Fred Rabhan, was among the first students — and became Rambam upon joining a larger Hebrew academy organization in 1990.
The school moved to the JEA in 1993. A non-denominational preschool is planned for the JEA space Rambam will vacate.