By Sharon Wisch-Ray
Oct. 1, 2026

When Lisa Vardi arrived at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in the Washington, D.C., area more than five years ago, she brought years of experience as an educator and school administrator.

She left with a different understanding of her role.

“I like to think of when I started there, I was an educational leader, and when I left there, I was a Jewish educational leader,” said Vardi, who began this summer as head of school at Ann and Nate Levine Academy in Dallas.

Serving as a senior leader at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, changed her priorities and the way she thinks and talks about Jewish education, Vardi said.

“I understand the importance today, at this moment in time, of providing children with strong Jewish roots, an education steeped in Jewish values that allows them to grow into confident Jewish leaders, with a strong identity, so that they can move forward in the world,” she said.

For Vardi, that means moving away from thinking about a Jewish day school education as two separate tracks — strong general studies on one side and Judaic studies on the other.

Instead, she said, the two should be integrated, with education rooted in Jewish values, Israel, Hebrew language and a sense of connection to the Jewish people.

“I think I talk about Jewish education differently now after Oct. 7,” Vardi said. “It’s about the integration of the two, rooted in Jewish values, because I think it’s so important for kids to go out into the world feeling confident with a strong identity.”

At Charles E. Smith, where many students were children of Israeli Embassy personnel, Vardi saw firsthand the challenge of surrounding students with Jewish joy amid the aftermath of Oct. 7, rising antisemitism and reactions to Israel around the world.

Vardi said Jewish day schools also give children a place to explore who they are without feeling they need to keep their heads down. 

“I don’t just call it a safe space, but a place that you can explore who you are and feel free,” Vardi said. “They’re free to be Jewish, whatever that looks like for them or their families.”

Before Oct. 7, she said, there wasn’t the same feeling — or perhaps the same awareness — of needing such a place.

“I think you do today,” Vardi said.

Vardi said that includes opportunities for children to experience Jewish joy, rituals and traditions together while learning from families whose Jewish practices may differ from their own. 

“That’s the beauty of being in an inclusive, some would say pluralistic, Jewish day school,” she said. “You have lots of different practices that come together and you learn from each other.”

At the same time, Vardi is keenly aware that parents expect academic excellence and want their children prepared for whatever comes after Levine.

Jewish learning itself, she said, develops many of those skills.

“Jewish education is inherently about critical thinking and going deeply into learning,” Vardi said. “It’s all about questioning and re-questioning and thinking of different interpretations to whatever question that is, which is excellent learning in itself.”

Vardi converted to Judaism in her early 20s and did not grow up attending Hebrew school or Jewish summer camp. Her own path into education began somewhat unexpectedly in Israel.

After earning a master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University, she moved to Haifa with her late husband, an Israeli she had met while living in Washington. Vardi had previously worked for AT&T and the U.S. Department of Commerce and was considering what she would do in Israel when she spotted an advertisement in The Jerusalem Post from Israel’s Ministry of Education seeking native English speakers to teach in schools.

Vardi had no teaching experience. Soon, she found herself at Leo Baeck Junior High School in Haifa, standing in front of a class of about 40 seventh graders.

“That was my first foray,” she said.

During three years in Haifa, Vardi earned her teaching certificate at Gordon College and eventually served as head of the middle school’s English department.

The time was transformational.

“I found my calling in education from that,” Vardi said. “Absolutely.”

The experience, she said, also deepened her love of and connection to Israel.

After returning to the United States, Vardi earned a second master’s degree in secondary education and taught in public school for eight years. She later spent 13 years at the Bullis School, an independent school in Maryland, where she held a number of roles, including director of teaching and learning.

Vardi earned her doctorate from Vanderbilt University’s School of Education in 2020. A little more than five years ago, she returned to the Jewish day school world at Charles E. Smith, where her own children had attended school.

Now just a few months into her first year at Levine, Vardi isn’t arriving with a list of things she believes need to change.

“I think it’s a little premature for me to come out to say, ‘This is what the school needs — boom, boom, boom,’” she said.

Instead, she said, her first year is about getting to know the community — “to learn, to listen, to feel, if you will.”

It is an approach Vardi demonstrated during her interview with the TJP. Before talking about herself, she asked to hear the story of the newspaper and listened carefully as its history was recounted.

At Levine, she has been doing much the same thing. Vardi has spent her first months meeting individually with faculty and staff members who want to meet with her, asking what they do, what they value about Levine and what their “hopes and dreams” are for the school. She is also getting to know board members, parents and students.

Every morning from 7:40 until school begins at 8, Vardi stands at the K-8 entrance greeting students.

It is a simple practice, but one that helps keep her connected to the reason she went into education in the first place.

“As you move up in positions in education, you can get further away from that,” she said.

Vardi said that throughout most of her career, even after moving into administration, she continued to teach a class or advise students. As head of school, meetings about admissions, fundraising, endowment and the other business of running a school can easily fill her day.

Greeting students each morning, she said, is one way she stays connected to them. 

“It reminds you every day of why you’re here and to be grounded,” she said. “To remember why you’re here — for the kids.”

Vardi said she was drawn to Levine by its academic excellence, its mission and, especially, the sense of community she encountered during two and a half days of interviews.

She had been told before visiting that Levine’s sense of community was unusual. Once she arrived, she understood what people meant.

“Lots of schools talk about community,” she said. “But when I came here, it’s genuine. There’s a pride and a love for this school that you don’t get everywhere.”

Vardi also sees opportunity in North Texas’ growing Jewish community and in Levine’s plans for the future. But it was the school’s mission that particularly drew her to Dallas. 

“You have to love the mission,” Vardi said. “You have to be able to speak about it in a deep, meaningful, connected way.

“I felt like I could do that here.”