Passion for education and technology linked

Lawrence resident Aaron Ross is a rabbi, teacher, husband and father who owns a technology company, and dispenses tech advice through local and national media. But if you asked the 38-year-old how he views himself Ross responds, “I like to give to others, whether it’s a love of computers or religion.”
The giving began in his own Lower East Side home, when his father, Paul, who then worked for Chase Bank, shared his love of computers with his son. “I think I was six or seven, dad brought home these massive Wang computers,” Ross said. “They were so cool and you could do so much with them. Create games, the fun was limitless. That’s true these days with the apps.”
After graduating from Yeshiva of Far Rockaway, a high school in Queens, Ross headed to Israel where he became an ordained rabbi. Not content to attend one college and major in a singular discipline, his education was comprised of a variety of online courses and his interest in computers and teaching melded, he said.
By 1996, Ross was teaching full-time and working for different companies in the Five Towns and throughout Long Island building their Information Technology foundations. He teaches fourth-graders at Yeshiva of South Shore in Hewlett middle school-aged kids at the Merrick Jewish Center. “I love teaching, and I try to make it special for every single kid,” said Ross, who has the website gishmak.com for his fourth-grade students that includes the header Shmooz.
Calling him a “superstar teacher” Rabbi Dovid Kramer, the executive director of Yeshiva of South Shore said Ross, “makes his classroom rock technologically,” but also creates a personal connection with his students. “He is a rebbe who appreciates what’s important to a 10-year-old and is sensitive enough to do things like take them out to breakfast — on his own time and check.”

It’s amazing considering that Ross and his wife, Reisy, have eight young children of their own. Married in 2001, several days before 9/11, the couple understand what is important, especially after a 2011 fire destroyed their Woodmere home.
No one was hurt as the family was out of the house for one of their monthly celebrations, but the majority of photographs and documents they thought were preserved through a computer backup service were not.
Having learned to start backing up computer files due to the frequent flooding that occurs in the Saddle Ridge section of Woodmere, Ross thought the more backup the better and began to create a backup program and his company, Ross Backup, supported by a few investors was founded. “I wanted something more simple,” he said about his company. “The company is structured so if the customers stop backing up we remind them and back it up remotely and properly.”
Ross’s educational and technology careers melded together and several years ago, when he was working for CSU Industries when they were in Cedarhurst and had the oldest son of the firm’s chief executive officer in his class at Yeshiva of South Shore.
“That yeshiva has great rebbeyan, the rabbis are unbelievable and he is definitely an example of the great rabbis,” said Avram Weissman, who heads the now Inwood-based information technology business that was recently sold to Curvature. “He is young, dynamic and connects to the kids with warmth and is excited about coming to school, and passing his love to learn, ”Weissman added.