There is no other Eruv in Orange County. (When our Rav arrived in Irvine in August 2005, a series of political obstacles that had delayed the Eruv‘s completion for more than a year serially were overcome.) Naturally, YIOC’s base is located smack in the heart of the Eruv community. When our Rav arrived in Irvine in August 2005, he set three initial priorities for his tenure,topped by his public announcement in front of 150 people — before a shovel had been set into breaking ground — that he would mobilize efforts to actualize the construction of a cutting-edge, contemporary Mikveh in Irvine within three years.
That Irvine Community Mikveh — called the “Community Mikveh” because the project has been undertaken jointly by several shuls in Irvine, from the University Park community to the Woodbridge community, and is administered and operated by a corporate body independent of any particular shul — opened to the public in 2009.
Meanwhile, for boys and girls, there is an Orthodox Jewish Day School only twenty minutes’ drive from YIOC — the Hebrew Academy of Huntington Beach in Westminster. The school is run by Lubavitch, but is not doctrinaire. (Rav Fischer endorses it, sent his son there, and can discuss the matter further with you.) The Girls’ School there runs through high school, from Grades 1-12. The Boys’ School runs from Grades 1-8. Rav Fischer will be delighted to discuss with you appropriate and excellent options for Jewish High School options for boys.
(Please note that Rav Fischer expressly does not endorse — and in fact rejects — the local “TVT” / “Tarbut v’Torah” school because its curriculum is utterly inadequate. Normative Orthodox families throughout Orange County avoid the place — indeed, boys there do not even have to wear yarmulkas — and it would be prudent to consult with Rav Fischer regarding the school’s several lacunae.)
