David ’93 and Shira ’95 Galper
David and Shira Galper needn’t look far for reminders of their high school days at Maimonides School.

“The most important thing Maimonides gave to me was meeting my wife,” says David, a 1993 graduate who began as a pre-schooler in the early ‘80s. “Maimonides offers a great support system, and I’m very fortunate to have met my husband there,” adds Shira ’95, who arrived in the tenth grade as a boarding student from New Haven.

They also agree that their overall experiences at Maimonides School were instrumental in shaping their professional and personal lives.

“Maimonides was a great experience,” Shira declares. “It was an excellent academic environment for secular and Judaic studies, and I was extremely well-prepared for college.” She notes that she also enjoyed a smooth transition to a year of post-graduate study at Midreshet Lindenbaum, the Jerusalem yeshiva for women, before beginning her undergraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania.

At Penn, Shira was a history major with a minor in biological bases of behavior, a neuroscience. “Two of my favorite subjects at Maimonides were English and history. I loved the liberal arts and I wanted to be able to have that experience,” she recounts. “Maimonides definitely had an impact in terms of combining the secular and the Judaic, and being able to continue that throughout my college experience.” After graduation and a year with the Jewish Women’s Archives in Brookline, Shira enrolled in Tufts University School of Medicine. She expects to complete her degree requirements in the fall and pursue a career in radiation oncology.

Shira traces her interest in medicine to her childhood, when her grandmother resided with the family and found that “liked taking care of elderly people.” That was reinforced in high school, when she served as a weekly volunteer at Coolidge House nursing home under the Project Shalom community service component at Maimonides. “I realized I wanted to work with people and partake in their care,” she explains. “Project Shalom gave me the opportunity to devote myself to a career that focuses on compassion and helping others.”

David Galper completed his undergraduate studies at Brandeis University in 1997, then joined the consulting firm Arthur D. Little, helping companies evaluate new technologies. He enrolled at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, receiving an MBA in February 2004. While in graduate school he helped found Ruckus Network, Inc., where today he is marketing vice president. Ruckus provides a digital network that offers college campuses a variety of entertainment programming, as well as opportunities for students to connect with peers who share their interests. “We’ve gotten the rights to distribute music and movies to college students in a legal manner,” he explains. The start-up has grown, and is now doing business with some major state university systems, including those in New York, Minnesota and North Carolina.

Maimonides School was excellent and appropriate training for an entrepreneur, he observes. “You have to be able to shift gears very rapidly and juggle 98 different things at once. I unquestionably got that at Maimonides, all those 45-minute classes and three minutes between them. It really was very similar to the life you lead in a small startup, where you’re not just focusing on one area. You have to raise capital, sell customers, make sure the servers are running—you have to shift gears rapidly.”

He says that, thanks to his academic background, he found college and business school quite manageable. Indeed, “it helped me far beyond college.” For instance, “the ability to write clearly and convey an idea to people succinctly—I learned that at Maimonides. The thought process—thinking things through logically that you learn in Talmud. I think that applies to thinking through a new idea, and I’ve applied that to the business world.” Still another quality fine-tuned during his school days is perseverance. “Once you come out of Maimonides,” David asserts, “you feel like you can do anything.”

Both Galpers emphasize the importance of lifelong friendships forged during their school years. “If you look at our lives right now, our closest friends are from Maimonides,” David says. “That says a lot—we graduated a long time ago. The bonds are still very much there.” Shira agrees that “my best friends from high school are still my very best friends. I think that’s unique—you’re able to keep those relationships strong… I don’t think I could do what I’m doing without a strong support system.”

The Galpers reside in Brookline and have an infant son, Ilan.

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