The Agnon School, a Jewish day school in Beachwood, Ohio, has announced a $17 million gift from the Joseph and Florence Mandel Family Foundation.

The largest portion of the gift will be added to an endowment for personnel and programs and will support higher salaries and additional professional development opportunities for faculty; the addition of a gifted-and-talented program specialist to the school’s Learning Enhancement Team; and an expanded Hebrew Immersion Program. The gift also will support a number of capital improvements, including a new central entrance, upgrades to the building's façade, and an expansion of the lobby. 

In recognition of the gift, the school will be renamed the Joseph and Florence Mandel Jewish Day School. The school's original namesake, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, was the first Israeli to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

"Of course, the facility itself is important, and these funds will help to provide us with a place where our students can learn and thrive," said school director Jerry Isaak-Shapiro. "Yet even more essential than the building is the quality of the learning that takes place within it — and the driver of that learning is and always has been the teacher. Attract the best educators, retain them, and support them — that's the essence of a truly superior school."