Rabbi Eliezer Rubin’s philosophy as a principal is straightforward: “My first approach is always to ask what’s best for the students.”

Dean of the upper school of Manhattan’s Ramaz day school, he has been selected as the new principal of Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston. Rubin, 46, will begin his tenure Aug. 1.

Kushner officials said Rubin was the search committee’s “unanimous first choice” to lead the Orthodox day school into the future, following a four-year period that has seen a new principal every year. Rubin will be the fifth since the departure of founding principal Rabbi Scot Berman in 2004. Berman was succeeded by Rabbi Abraham Warhaftig, who died suddenly in 2005. Rabbi Moshe Brand, then an administrator at Kushner, stepped into the position but left after one year to become assistant principal of general studies at Yeshiva Ketanah of Manhattan. Veteran educator Richard Kaye has been serving on an interim basis for the 2006-07 academic year while the school searched for a long-term replacement.

“Rabbi Rubin has an unparalleled record of achievement with personal qualities people have called inspiring for scholarship and middos [values],” said Dr. Leonard Bielory, president of the board at Kushner. “He is like a charismatic rebbe people look up to and interact with.”

Bielory added, “He will take us to the next step.”

Bielory acknowledged that the school has been in a kind of “turmoil” since the sudden death of Warhaftig.

“Would I have preferred a solid past four years? Of course,” he said. “There’s a paucity of good administrators who are also respected educators with rabbinic and leadership background. It’s not a position you can fill right away.”

Still, he added, the relationship this year with Kaye has proved so successful that he will be staying on in an advising capacity “for as long as he wishes,” said Bielory, adding, “The interaction between Rabbi Rubin and him is so complementary. The sum of these two individuals is greater than the two alone.”

Rubin joined Ramaz 17 years ago, first as a member of the faculty of the upper school, then as headmaster in the lower and middle schools. He received a master’s degree in Judaic studies from Touro College and is currently completing an advanced degree in education from the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University.

Rubin lived in Israel from 1979 until 1989 and studied in the Mercaz HaRav Kook yeshiva under the tutelage of the former Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, Avraham Shapira, receiving ordination from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. He earned the rank of lieutenant in the Israel Defense Forces and served as a chaplain for the 13th brigade.

He is the father of five children ranging in age from 14 to 24, and in the last month he became a grandfather.

Rubin’s first impression of Kushner was actually architectural: When Ramaz was planning to build a new middle school, he took a tour of the Kushner facility. With no idea that his future might find him there, he said, he was taken not only with the “magnificence” of the building but also the message it sends. “It demonstrates the level of respect the school has for education.”

Later, he said, when approached to consider the position at Kushner, “I became very impressed by the vision of the lay leadership and their understanding of healthy lay governance.”

Rubin, coming from a school with a 70-year history, was drawn to the potential of a 10-year-old institution. “As the institution matures, it will be a leading force in the Jewish community of New Jersey,” he predicted. “The school administration and community leaders demonstrate a vision and real desire to create and maintain a standard of educational excellence.”

Rubin’s vision for the school is “to continue growing the educational and religious initiatives taken by the school leadership and at the same time create exciting initiatives in general and Judaic studies.”

He said he wants to integrate the school into the surrounding neighborhoods through service projects and to ensure a wealth of extracurricular learning opportunities. He said that as a principal, he values collaboration among faculty, administration, parents, and lay leaders, something he learned at Ramaz.

He added that he believes in transparency and demands a high degree of professionalism from the faculty. He also looks forward to creating opportunities for what he calls “meaningful opportunities for growth” among students. Based on his methods at Ramaz, this approach mirrors the idea that hands-on experience is the best teacher.

At Ramaz, where he emphasized the collaborative process, he was involved in creating initiatives designed to teach students how to put their beliefs into action.

“We created a tefila [prayer] vigil by the Iranian mission to give our students the opportunity to protest Ahmadinejad’s proclamations,” he said, referring to the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel stance of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “I can’t believe it will have any long-term effect on Iranian or American policy. But it goes a great way toward teaching kids to advocate for what they believe in.”

Similarly he takes a group of students to Washington every year to teach them the importance of advocacy through political channels.

His methods for evaluating classroom learning are less dramatic, including eliciting internal and external feedback as well as conducting regular class observations, write-ups, and meetings. He also questions assumptions all the time. “I don’t believe in applying practices maintained by inertia,” which means, he said, he’s not afraid to explore the value of open-book versus closed-book tests or whether there is more value in assignments than in tests, for example.

He worries about what lessons students are learning and how general studies and Jewish studies are integrated. Recently at Ramaz, Rubin offered a week of study discussing the subject of traditional rabbinic authority.

“For most families attending an Orthodox institution, the concept of mesora, or traditional authority, is an assumed value,” he said. But he wondered how the students were handling that value. “Studying history, students can find great scholars who never embraced that value of the religious message attached to their scholarship. We have to be careful when we challenge students academically and cognitively that we are not underestimating the need for them to grow religiously and emotionally.”

He said he sees his role as a constant balancing act. “The art of being a principal involves a tension between the idealistic and the realistic,” he said, adding, “There’s a tension between being autonomous and conformist” and between “leadership and stewardship.”

Rubin is currently weighing whether to remain in Manhattan or move closer to the school. When he arrives in August, among the first things he will do is study the school environment.

“I want to identify and understand the cultural needs of the Kushner Jewish community. Every school creates its own independent culture.”

Still, he does not expect his interaction with Kushner students and families to differ significantly from what he has experienced with their counterparts at Ramaz.

“These kids share common challenges and issues,” he said, “and families in both schools have similar social, educational, and religious concerns for their children.”