RA’ANANA, Israel — The teen-agers hanging out in the lobby of the Meitarim Ra’anana junior and senior high school look like your average teens in America — laughing, relaxing, and playing guitar, wearing their Crocs clogs as their shoulder-length hair rests on their backpacks.

But a closer look reveals the uniqueness of the school. Some of the young men wear kipot; some do not. Some of the young women wear modest skirts; others wear tank tops. Some of the guys and girls hold hands while others maintain their distance.

Such a pluralist environment at a school would have been unheard of in Israel a few years ago. But thanks in part to the support and inspiration provided by a group of New Jerseyans, such schools are becoming a trend in Israel.

United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ has partnered with the four-year-old school and others modeled after it as part of the fund-raising organization’s efforts to facilitate religious pluralism in Israel, allocating $81,500 over the past few years.

As of Aug. 31, Meitarim has attained a milestone, receiving full recognition by the Israeli Education Ministry, which only rarely recognizes schools that are neither “secular” nor Orthodox. The recognition will allow the school to benefit from the ministry’s educational supervision, training, and faculties and enable Meitarim students in 10th grade and younger to take state-mandated matriculation tests within an official framework.

Ilana Mushkin, the chairwoman of Meitarim’s Parents’ Association for Pluralistic Education, which founded and manages the school, said the main impact of the Education Ministry’s recognition would be to encourage more parents to consider the school as a realistic option for their children.

“It was the end of a four-year struggle,” Mushkin said. “We had been pushing for the recognition for so long. I was wiped out from waiting.”

The Education Ministry’s endorsement came too late for 11th-grader Smadar Artzi and her friends in the school lobby, but, she told NJJN, she was still thankful that she enrolled at the school.

Artzi, who was raised Orthodox, did not want to go to an Orthodox school, and her parents did not want her to attend a secular school. Meitarim served as a convenient compromise between the two, an option that is unavailable to most Israeli youth under Israel’s two-track system.

“This school gives you the freedom to choose your own way,” Artzi said. “It allows people to build their own personality, which wouldn’t happen in a normal school. No one forces the religion on you but it becomes a part of you naturally. They teach you different sides of Judaism so you see the beauty in it.”

Artzi, 16, said she has not decided yet whether she wants to be religious. She said that meanwhile, she observes some aspects of religious practice while forgoing others. It is an approach that fits well in a student body where a quarter of the students consider themselves Orthodox, a quarter secular, and half somewhere in between.

Many students come from Orthodox backgrounds determined to abandon what they regard as the burden of religion but end up with their beliefs and observance strengthened due to the positive environment at Meitarim, she said.

“The people here are open-minded and real,” Artzi said. “Everyone helps each other here. The small class sizes makes the classes more relaxed but also much more interesting and meaningful. People here do well because the teachers have more time to give personal attention and help their students.”

Secular students said they too gain from the diverse environment.

An eighth-grade boy named Stav, whose family asked that his last name not be used, said his bar mitzva ceremony was more meaningful because he had learned about Judaism.

“None of my family is religious, and I am complete secular and I will stay that way, but I like learning about Judaism,” Stav said. “The Judaism we learn isn’t religious. We see the religion from an observer’s perspective and the teachers don’t give their opinions. I never thought I would go to a Jewish school, but it’s great and I am learning so much.”

Pop the champagne

The school currently has 60 students in grades seven, eight, nine, 11, and 12. There is no 10th grade because the parents of students who were in ninth grade last year enrolled their children in other schools out of fear that the Education Ministry would not recognize the school in time for their children’s matriculation tests.

The fax from the ministry informing the school that it had been recognized arrived three days before the start of the 2006-07 school year, an hour after an event marking the start of the school year had ended. The staff, parents, and youngsters who were still at the school when the fax came in burst out in joy, a group of students with instruments played a victory song, and one parent brought in a bottle of champagne; he said he had kept it at home for two years, saving it to celebrate the recognition.

School principal Menashe Bar Tuv said the delay in receiving recognition had to do with the school’s professionalism and not its pluralist outlook. He had to make the school more organized, get approval for its curriculum, make sure only teachers with degrees were employed, and enforce greater discipline regarding class attendance and completion of homework assignments.

“The Education Ministry isn’t stupid,” he said. “They know what schools deserve recognition and which don’t. They don’t have a clear policy on pluralism, but they do on professionalism.”

The ministry also recognizes the 120 schools in the TALI system, a network of schools supported largely by the Conservative and Reform movements that offer a pluralistic alternative to the secular and Orthodox tracks.

The school day at Meitarim starts at 8:15 a.m. with an option of attending an Orthodox prayer service, a more general service with discussion of prayer and Jewish philosophy, and secular workshops in meditation, music, or art.

Meitarim sees itself as a model for other schools that want to allow religious, secular, and traditional youth to benefit from quality Jewish and general education in an atmosphere of pluralism and mutual tolerance. The school’s founders want Meitarim to be a prototype not only for other schools but for Israeli society as a whole.

“I believe that all kids can be together in one school,” Bar Tuv said. “From my point of view, what’s most important is that all our children see themselves as part of Jewish history and the Jewish people. That’s what we all have in common.”