This fall, two well-known Canadian Jewish schools will introduce new heads of school—and both leaders share similar visions for what students and parents and staff can expect when classes begin the first week of September.
TanenbaumCHAT, Canada’s largest pluralistic Jewish high school, in Toronto, is welcoming Dr. Amy Platt, who joins after nearly a decade leading one of the city’s elementary/middle schools, Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School. Meanwhile, Dr. Laura Segall is the new leader of the Ottawa Jewish Community School, an elementary/middle school. Both women have experience as being the first female heads of school at different stops in their careers: Platt makes that history at TanenbaumCHAT, while Segall was the first female head of school at her former post, Montreal’s Hebrew Academy, an Orthodox K-11 school.
Platt describes her move as one of size and scope, moving from a small urban elementary school to one with over 1,400 students. Segall, meanwhile, is moving into a school half the size of her old one, in a city with one-sixth the Jewish population.
Yet both women share plans and priorities for the new school year: they want their schools to be places for Jewish joy, balancing an atmosphere of safety against threats and attacks from protesters, antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Both also want to curate a robust menu of Zionist and Israeli programming and culture. Segall wants to involve the wider Ottawa community more, while Platt is forecasting more opportunities for Tikkun Olam.
On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, Amy Platt and Laura Segall join host Ellin Bessner for a preview of their plans for the first day of school—and the first weeks, months and beyond.
Related Links
Read about Amy Platt’s bridge-building competition (literally, bridges) in The CJN from 2017.
Learn how Laura Segall’s Hebrew Academy welcomed a “Gesher Chair” delegation of students from Beer Sheva, Israel for a week, in The CJN from 2016.
Hear the outgoing head of TanenbaumCHAT Jonathan Levy on why Jewish education helps students “build an ark” to survive antisemitism, on The CJN’s “North Star” podcast from July 2026.
Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Izzy Helenchilde (producer and video editor),l Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
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