SAR High School


Salanter Akiba Riverdale High School is a Modern Orthodox Jewish private yeshiva in Riverdale, New York City. It was founded in 2003 by Rabbi Naftali Harcsztark. The school is affiliated with SAR Academy, which is also in Riverdale. A little over half of the students attending SAR High School come from the Academy. The high school's founding and current Principal is Rabbi Tully Harcsztark, who has guided the creation of the school, both in terms of philosophy and structure, since the planning stages. In fall 2019, previous assistant principal Rabbi Jonathan Kroll, returned to the school to serve as its Co-Principal.
As of the 2017-18 school year, the school had an enrollment of 539 students and 121.0 classroom teachers, for a student–teacher ratio of 4.45:1.

Machon Siach

In 2017, Principal Rabbi Tully Harcsztark founded a Jewish think tank organization based out of SAR, called Machon Siach. In 2019, Machon Siach started its first Graduate Fellowship. The Machon Siach Graduate Fellowship is a yearlong fellowship in which a cohort of young professionals, with the participation of SAR faculty members and guest speakers, engages in text study, conversation, reflection and leadership, on a range of topics that confront the American Modern Orthodox community.

Extracurricular activities

SAR High School, now in its sixteenth year, already has over 100 co-curricular activities. Students have the opportunity to contribute to a wide variety of publications including Ruach Searah, the Dvar Torah newsletter; The Buzz, the official school newspaper; The Science Journal; Math Mag, an award-winning publication; the literary journal, Euphrates; The Israel Activism Committee's HaOketz covering Israel current events; "House Divided," the first student run publication dedicated to political and historical dialogue; SARcasm, the school satire magazine, and the Global Awareness and Action Committee's publication. Clubs include Model United Nations, Debate, Mock Trial, College Bowl, and countless others. SAR also has many charity clubs, including the Cookies For A Cause Club, which has won multiple grants and awards, including the Optimum Charity Champions grant in 2015. In 2019, SAR’s Economics Club won the National Championships in the Personal Finance Challenge, beating over 18,000 other students nationwide.

Sports

All of SAR's teams are members of the Metropolitan Yeshiva High School Athletic League, which is composed of many of the Jewish day schools throughout the New York metropolitan area.
The SAR teams are: JV Boys Softball, V Girls Softball, V Boys Hockey, V Girls Hockey, V Boys Soccer, V Girls Soccer, JV Girls Soccer, JV Boys soccer, JV Boys Basketball, V Boys Basketball, V Girls Volleyball, JV Girls Volleyball, V Boys Volleyball, V Boys Baseball, Boys and Girls Track, V Boys Tennis, and the V Boys Wrestling team.
SAR's College Bowl team was featured in the 2012-2013 season of MSG Varsity's the Challenge. They were the Bronx/Brooklyn champions but lost in the following round.
SAR also has a Fencing Team that competes once a year with other Jewish Yeshivas. SAR High School also has a broadcasting club that livestreams sports games throughout the year. The current livestreams and archives can be found at