The dedication of a chapel where female students will pray and study was the focal point of an emotional ceremony at Abrams Hebrew Academy in Yardley, Pa., on Dec. 17 in memory of a 1996 graduate who lost her life in an automobile accident in 2004.

Family and friends of Aliza Rachel Levites, 23 at the time of her death, gathered with school and community leaders to dedicate in her memory the Beit Aliza Rachel Chavurah for Girls, as well as a Torah scroll and a pedestrian walkway that will also serve as an exhibition gallery.

The dedication events included a keynote address by Blu Greenberg, an author and noted Orthodox feminist, who said the chapel space was a powerful statement of the nondenominational day school’s commitment to Jewish education for young women.

“This is a first for me,” said Greenberg, author of On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition. “I know of no other such space in a mixed-gender day school. It will be a special place, a place of study and prayer, for generations of young women. My heart is overflowing with joy.”

The dedication of Beit Aliza Rachel was just one of the day’s three dedications in memory of Levites. Also dedicated were the Torah scroll and the Link of Abrams Hebrew Academy, the gallery/walkway that connects the school’s new Henrietta Milstein School Building, the original historic building, and the gymnasium.

The day also featured the official unveiling of plaques in honor of the Melvin Kushner Elementary School, the Ruth and Bernard Schnur Middle School, and the Betzalel Milstein Early Childhood Learning Center at Abrams.

The Link will serve as the focal point for an exhibit in text and photographs of the history of the school and its generations of students, parents, and educators. New York exhibit designer and Abrams graduate Daniel Schnur and former Abrams president Ruthellen Rubin designed the Link.

“I don’t feel we could have found a more appropriate way to honor my daughter,” said Nancy Levites, a past president of the Abrams PTA. She said she was also speaking on behalf of her husband, Rafael, a past president of the Abrams board, and their family. “The chapel, the Torah, and the Link will continue to make a positive impact on so many lives long after my husband and I are gone. It’s incredibly gratifying to be able to pay tribute to my daughter in such a way.”

Rabbi Ira Budow, in his 26th year as director of Abrams, noted that the Beit Aliza Chavurah is appropriately named, since “Beit Aliza” can be translated as “House of Joy.” The rabbi added that although the day’s events are directly linked to the tragic death of a 23-year-old woman, the intent was not to provoke tears but to provide inspiration, “to make everyone proud of our religion.”

Sharing that pride was Abrams student Devra Goldstein.

“Those of us who read Torah feel blessed to do so in a havura named in Aliza’s memory,” she said. “She is an inspiration to all of us.”

Andrew Frank, executive director of the United Jewish Federation of Princeton Mercer Bucks, who spoke at the dedication, referred to the lay leadership and staff of the school as “beacons of Jewish renaissance.”

“Your vision and determination have brought us to this point,” Frank said. “You are helping to ensure a glowing future for generations of Jews to come.”

In her keynote address, Greenberg, founding president of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, said that Jews always have been instructed to teach the words of the Torah to their children. However, she said, for years, those instructions pertained only to half of the Jewish population, since women were essentially excluded from this powerful tradition.

The reasons for that were many, she said — among them, the influence of outside cultures, prejudice concerning women’s intellectual capacities, and the fact that Jewish leaders and scholars were overwhelmingly male.

“Torah learning was the route to power,” she said, “and that route was closed off to women.”

Yet things did gradually change, she said. In the 1880s, the first Jewish high school for girls was established. As the 20th century progressed, the American approach to education, which provided women with equal access, served as a model for the Jewish world. Then, in the 1970s, the impact of feminism on the various branches of Judaism was significant.

The Reform and later the Conservative movements began to ordain female rabbis; in the Orthodox movement, Greenberg said, “the walls separating women from rabbinic text began to fall.”

She suggested that today’s generation of Jewish women is rapidly evolving into the most learned in Jewish history. “The present generation and future generations must continue to produce women who are inspired by Jewish learning,” she said. “By providing a place of prayer for young women, Abrams Hebrew Academy is giving so many young women that opportunity.”

Minutes later, Rabbi Elliot Strom, religious leader of Shir Ami-Bucks County Jewish Congregation in nearby Newtown, Pa., was strumming his guitar and leading a procession as the Torah scroll was taken into the Beit Aliza Rachel Chavurah.

As the scroll was placed in its permanent home, the memories came flooding back for Nancy Levites.

“Abrams was our home away from home for so many years,” she said. “Today, as I looked around, I saw all of these people that we grew up with, so to speak. Our common bond was our belief in Jewish education. The loss of Aliza brought the Abrams community together for this wonderful tribute. It’s been everything my family and I could have hoped for.”