Recent Events | אירועים שוטפים |
Visiting Teachers Wanted
Jared Matas Honored as Wexner Fellow
Third Grade Milestone on Midrash
The Spirit of Celebration
The World of Technology: 2nd Grade Studies Robotics
Matters of Taste
The Joy of Klezmer
Purim
Math Fair
Publishing Party
Kabbalat Mishna
Hanukkah
Mi Dor L’Dor
6th Grade at TEVA
JCDS Teacher Wins Award
Building the Sukkah
Rosh Hashana
Visiting Teachers Wanted
A poet, age 87, sits in front of a roomful of eighth graders who are studying poetry. The poet holds a volume of poems written by the students, and the students hold a book of poems written by the poet. They take turns reading poems to each other. “I wish I had written that” the poet, Lillian Freedman, says to a student. A student asks what event might have sparked Mrs. Freedman’s interest in writing a particular poem. With laughter, questioning, and smiles, the students and the poet spend an hour reading and discussing poetry. The universal, timeless appeal of poetry is explored; age biases may be erased, and another visiting teacher has enriched and been enriched by teaching a class to JCDS students.
Second graders sit at tables in the hadar ohel (cafeteria) looking at recipes for engaging (and healthy) treats while a parent describes the dilemma. Each recipe will only make enough food for a few students. How can the students change the recipes so that each table can make enough food for the entire second grade? Math becomes a real world issue as students discuss how to multiply and add the teaspoons, cupfuls, and tablespoons. After the challenge is met, students reap the delicious benefits of their calculations.
Visitors share a range of passions and experiences with our students. One visiting teacher talked about his participation in the Kindertransport that took Jewish children from Germany to England during World War II. Others have shared interests in math, writing, science, abstract paintings, x-rays, medical issues, and quilting.
Please think about what you would like to share with our students; you have much to offer! Please contact Aliza VosLevitz at 
to talk about your ideas. Some of our students’ most memorable times at school come from being with guest teachers. Enrich yourself and enrich JCDS students!
Jared Matas Honored as Wexner Fellow
Each year, the Wexner Foundation selects twenty outstanding young Jewish professional leaders as Wexner Graduate Fellows/Davidson Scholars. As stated on the Wexner Foundation website, “Wexner Graduate Fellowships represent an elite group within the American Jewish community. They are the most accomplished candidates for professional Jewish leadership training in North America.”
We are delighted to report that Jared Matas, a JCDS Kindergarten teacher has been selected to be a Wexner Graduate/Davidson Scholar. Jared will continue to teach at JCDS where he has taught for seven years, and in July of 2010, he will begin studies in the joint Northeastern University/Hebrew College Doctorate in Education program, with a specialization in Jewish Educational Leadership.
Jared is a graduate of the DeLeT (Day School Leadership through Teaching) Program at Brandeis University where he earned his Masters in Education, and he has already taken a leadership role in working with teachers in day schools throughout North America. Through the DeLeT Alumni Leadership Committee, Jared has organized research on how Jewish day schools approach curricular integration. In addition, he has presented at national conferences on both mentoring teachers and on organizing teacher study groups. At JCDS he worked on our Vision of Teacher Excellence document, and he serves on the Search Committee for the new head of school.
Jared commented that he has taught over a dozen students at JCDS whose parents were Wexner Fellows. In addition, he is currently working on a pilot project with Tufts University in which Kindergarten students are building and programming Lego robots. The graduate student with whom he is working is also a Wexner Fellow.
We are proud of Jared and proud that JCDS has so many exciting Jewish leaders, both in the parent body and now working at school.
Third Grade Milestone on Midrash
Even our younger students focus on text and its meaning, both overt and hidden, as they read and study Torah through the lens of Midrash-מדרש (commentary). The third grade class shared and celebrated some of what they learned in their recent Milestone event, an interdisciplinary presentation that grew out of their study of some of the foundational stories in Breisheet-בראשית (Genesis), like Lekh l’Kha (Abraham journeying to Canaan) or the rivalry between Yaakov (Jacob) and Esav (Esau).
In the first part of the year our third graders studied, in Hebrew, the meaning of the text of the Humash (The Five Books of Moses) in its plain sense, giving special attention to lead p’sukim-verses. That is, they took note of plot in the text, who are its figures, and what is the arc of the story. As the year progressed, they learned and practiced the critical skill of raising questions about a text, exploring what questions are raised by the words of the text and what questions might be raised by what is not in the text. These third graders were introduced to reading the distinctive Rashi script that is the gateway to his commentary. (Rashi is the greatest of the medieval commentators on the Torah, from 11th century France.) Having learned the script of Rashi’s commentary, the students undertook to learn some of the many teachings he brings from the Midrash – the genre of commentary by way of expansion and explication of the text.
At their Haggigat Tsiyun Derech (ציון דרך) (Milestone), the third grade students performed a play based on the text and some of the Midrashim they had studied, and they shared their metaphors about Midrash. One student wrote that Midrash is like a door because it opens up new areas to see. Another student wrote that Midrash is like a detective because it helps you discover what you did not know. In addition, students shared a dance, singing, and art projects connected to their studies. Their notebooks in which they answered questions about text and Midrash, in Hebrew and English, were on display.
As with all Milestone events, our students received a book for their personal library as a gift from the school; they studied with their parents and then shared what they had learned or discussed with the other students and parents. Kol ha’Kavod (כל הכבוד) (Congratulations) to the third grade teachers and students!
The Spirit of Celebration at JCDS
Three recent events express well JCDS’ culture of multi-dimensional academics, joyful learning, and participatory community. On March 24, Alon’s (Fourth Grade) Milestone Celebration, Hagigat haHaggadah (Haggdah Celebration) culminated months of study on the Torah’s Exodus narrative and on the Pesach Seder. Gathered before an audience of parents and relatives, the students presented a Hebrew play that explored how each symbol of the Seder expressed slavery and freedom. Hebrew songs and a dance reflected the Pesach themes of springtime and liberation. Artwork included ceramic Seder plates designed with JCDS parent and arts specialist Sasha Lichtenstein, and dramatic wall paintings of the Ten Plagues were also on display. The students also showed off the Hebrew notebooks they had been keeping all year on The Life of Moses. Finally, with the help of parent volunteer Dr. Marina Bers, the students presented digital reflections on the Exodus story using the innovative computer program, Scratch. In keeping with JCDS tradition, the morning concluded with family study time, in which parents and students could explore and learn from the school’s gift to them, the wonderful Haggadah, A Night to Remember.
Two days later, on March 26, we held our all-school Pesach Celebration. An eager crowd of students gathered before a bare table in our Sifriyah (library). In trooped eight Middle School students, arms piled high with the accoutrements of a Pesach Seder. They took their seats but quickly realized (according to the script they’d been rehearsing all week) that they had no idea what to do. Talya Lerner, helpful third grader that she is, stepped forward: “Excuse me, but you all seem a little lost. Can I help you?” And so began a class by class demonstration of the key parts of the Seder. With good humor and impressive mastery, the Lower School classes “taught” the Middle Schoolers how a Seder is done. The Lower Schoolers returned to class while the Middle Schoolers continued with a Haggadah-based text study. A Sephardi-Ashkenazi Charoset tasting rounded out the afternoon for the Middle School students.
On April 23, our second graders held their Milestone, Sippurei B’reishit – a celebration of the Genesis stories. This program, an innovation at JCDS, marks that our Arava class has commenced formal study of Torah from the original Hebrew text, having progressed beyond Torah as “mere” stories. The celebration featured English-Hebrew skits shaped by the students themselves, each retelling foundational stories from the first book of the Torah. Framing the skits were student recitations from the biblical text and songs, in English and in Hebrew. Art and writing projects highlighted and extended the students’ learning. These included beautiful clay Torah pointers (Yaddot). The school’s gift to the students was the B’reishit volume of a set of Humash (Torah with commentary). This book is the text from which the students will study in class through the end of 3rd grade. Dedication plates from the parents helped deepen students’ sense that the books they received are a precious part of Jewish tradition.
The World of Technology: Second Grade Studies Robotics
You and I read Dick and Jane in second grade; JCDS second-grade students learn programming, robotics, and engineering design!
Using Lego- based building pieces in combination with arts and crafts materials, the six and seven-year-old students in our Arava Classroom designed and constructed robotic flowers inspired by photographs of exotic flora from colorful periodicals such as National Geographic.
Working in pairs, students built, and then named, their beautiful flowers. Of course, each pair’s stem was entirely different in shape and size from every other. Children were taught how to program their uniquely individual flowers to behave the way flowers behave. For example, flowers, by nature, are phototropic – they lean toward sunlight. Students, by properly using small Lego motors and sensors embedded in their flowers, were able to program blossoms to move and lean in various ways in response to stimuli such as touch and space proximity; their robotic blossoms came to life! You can only imagine the children’s collective excitement when all the flowers were put together in a class garden!
גן ילדים של ילדי הגן
Our garden of children planted a children’s garden!
This is one brief example of the technology being taught in pilot programs in the JCDS Lower School in which students take on the roles of designer, programmer, creator and maker. This technology teaches individuals to learn to sequence and think systematically, to assess, to apply information, and when uncertainty arises, to troubleshoot. It requires that children learn computational thinking – which develops technological fluency – which opens up a whole world of learning.
It is with enormous gratitude that we thank Dr. Marina Bers, JCDS parent; Tufts University Associate Professor of Child Development and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Computer Science. The time, knowledge, industry, and caring Marina has given to our students and their teachers is immeasurable; she has opened up a whole world of learning to us.
As a Matter of Fact, Matters of Taste was Magnificent
On Sunday, March 7, 2010, JCDS, Boston’s Jewish Community Day School, held its annual signature fund-raising event, Matters of Taste. Of extraordinary importance to the school community, this mission-driven event raises money for the JCDS Flexible Tuition Fund. Matters of Taste also reflects our school’s pluralism; there is something for everybody – in the diversity of special guests, in the variety of culinary delights served, and in the host families who open their homes to individuals choosing to “nourish their bodies and enrich their minds.”
The affair began with a rousing reception at the school’s campus in Watertown, where close to 300 people mingled and experienced JCDS magic. Tasty hors d’oeuvres were served as visitors walked around the building admiring exhibits of student work and art displays. Guests were later entertained by the twenty-piece Middle School klezmer band, as well as the JCDS student choir. Both Ruth Gass, Head of School, and Alex Sagan, President of the Board of Trustees, shared words of pride, and heartfelt thanks to all were given by Matters of Taste Chairs and JCDS parents, Michael Rubin and Shira Lion.
Immediately following the program, those at the reception happily headed off to one of eighteen different dinners, each representing some part of the remarkable JCDS community at large. (There were actually twenty different dinners, two held in Israel, a vivid reminder of the biculturalism within the JCDS community and recognition that we have a growing number of friends half way across the world)!
Special guests and dinner hosts were as unique and varied as those individuals who attended the dinners. Matters of Taste took place in a variety of venues, including residences of both friends and families of the JCDS community in Greater Boston, in Israel, as well as at the Seven Cycles Bicycle Shop in Watertown, and the Alumni Dinner was right here at our school! Our twenty special guests represented a continuum of life, including scientists, physicians, actors, clergy, chefs, musicians, authors, producers, politicians such as Congressman Barney Frank, and award winning NPR journalist, Tom Ashbrook.
Matters of Taste 2010 made its mark on the Jewish community. The evening was a smashing success, with words of praise, delight, and gratitude from guests and hosts too numerous to include in this writing. And although we exceeded our fundraising goal for the evening, raising in excess of $670,000.00, we are still far from raising the $900,000.00 needed to cover the educational costs of families who otherwise would be denied a JCDS education. If you have already given, we thank you and urge you to continue your support of JCDS and its Flexible Tuition Fund. If you have not yet contributed, please consider doing so, for giving is far more than a matter of taste; it is a matter of perpetuating Jewish education.
The Joy of Klezmer at JCDS
In recent months, KLEZSTOCK, the 20-piece JCDS Middle School Klezmer Band, has played at events both inside and outside of school. Most recently they played for the residents of Covenant House, an independent living facility in Brighton for local elderly, many of whom are Jewish. Earlier in the spring, they performed at Matters of Taste, JCDS’s annual signature fundraising event. Prior to that, they entertained at a fundraiser for Gateways, an organization that enables children with special needs to receive a Jewish education. They also performed at the 4th annual Acapella Fest at Temple Mishkan Tefila to benefit Ethiopian Early Childhood Education in Haifa and the Mitzvah Heroes Fund.
KLEZSTOCK members play an unusually broad array of instruments including: piano, keyboard, violin, guitar, harp, trumpet, trombone, saxophone, flute, xylophone and doumbek drum. These 5th through 8th grade Middle School students of varying levels of musical experience practice weekly in ensemble to make heartfelt Jewish music for their school community.
The Richness and Zaniness of Purim at JCDS
Purim, celebrated on the 14th of Adar, fell on a weekend this year, but at JCDS we didn’t miss a beat of celebration and study! The students spent weeks learning about Purim, and the festivities began several days in advance with Kif-Kef Week, which roughly translates as Crazy Fun Week. On Monday, everyone donned pajamas; Tuesday brought Crazy Hair and Funny Hat Day; and on Wednesday, clothes were worn inside out and backwards. That same week students brought contributions from home toward Mattanot l’Evyonim, Gifts for those in Need, to assure that they fulfilled that Mitzvah alongside the silliness and fun. On Thursday, the older students and the staff marked Ta’anit Esther (the Fast of Esther), and on Friday students assembled bags of mishloach manot from hundreds of hamantashen and other wonderful treats baked by students here at school.
The following Monday (Shushan Purim), everyone arrived at school in masks and costumes. Princes and Spacemen, Santa Claus and rabbis, bottles of ketchup, cans of Sprite and masked bandits came together for our all-school Purim celebration. Making clear that the holiday itself had passed, we still had some celebrating to do together and heard a few select portions of the Megillah read aloud. The reading was intermingled with a Mad-Libs version of the story. Every few minutes we sang Purim songs and sent another group of costumed students parading around the room; it was a gala morning and it readied the Lower School students for an event for which they wait all year: the Purim Carnival!
The carnival, replete with games and booths of all kinds, is designed and run entirely by Middle School students. The atmosphere is joyful, the signs and booths colorful and truly create a thrilling experience for the younger children. Prizes are awarded, sweets and treats abound and everyone is happy! The Lower Schoolers are watched over and taken care of by their older peers, who remember well when they were the younger ones and therefore want to make the experience even more exciting and wonderful for the little ones! The teachers smile when, at the end of the day, the Middle Schoolers report: “Little kids are exhausting!”
Educational+delightful+generous+silly+creative+joyous+exhausting = Purim at JCDS
Click the play button to enjoy Gan Nitzan’s Purim Megillah:
Middle School Math Fair
The 2010 JCDS Middle School Math Fair consisted of hands-on workshops exploring the use of math in the Internet, Google search, taxes, TV shows, and games. Each student could choose two workshops to attend. The workshops were led by various experts in their fields, who broadened the students’ perspectives on applications of mathematics or new math concepts.
In the afternoon sessions, the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders attended a seminar with renowned guest speakers Bob and Ellen Kaplan, the founders of The Math Circle and The Math Circle Summer Teacher Training Institute (www.themathcircle.org) . This is their 4th year hosting a seminar at our Math Fair for which we are extremely grateful! Bob and Ellen have a talent for getting students excited about mathematics and drawing them into lively discussions. Their discussions centered on rational numbers, infinite series, parabolas, clocks, negative numbers, and much more.
Kitat Oren Students Celebrate the Publication of their Very Own Stories!
Since autumn, Kitat Oren (grade one) students have been writing true stories about their own lives while simultaneously learning useful and important writing skills. They have spent several months working on the entire writing process, from original “sloppy-copy” drafts, to final published editions of their work.
Classroom writing and editing lessons have included items such as:
- Writers compose pieces about subjects they know and care about
- Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end
- A strong piece of writing includes “author’s voice”
- Stories require a title that “grabs” the reader
- Extraneous words should be eliminated
- Illustrations drawn usually match words and ideas in story
Once their stories were completed and written in final form, each student had the opportunity to read her/his story aloud to the delight of an appreciative audience consisting of peers, teachers, parents and even some grandparents!
Other important features of this lesson were:
- As a reader, how to read for an audience
- As an audience member, how to be an active, thoughtful listener
After their presentations, Oren students reflected upon the process of the event, asking “What did I do well as reader, and what did I do well as a writer?”
Were JCDS a renowned publishing house, the morning could not have gone more beautifully. Kitat Oren students rose to the occasion as writers, readers, listeners, and mensches of an important classroom community!
5th Grade Kabbalat Mishna
On Friday, January 22nd, Kitat Tamar (our fifth grade class) celebrated its Kabbalat Mishna milestone event. The students began their study of Mishna this year in their Toshb’a (an acronym for “Torah sheb’al peh,” which refers to Oral Torah) class. Most recently the students have studied Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) so most of the ceremony was centered around this Masechet (section) of the Mishna. The students studied individual mishnayot and prepared skits to explain the sayings of the Rabbis to each other and to the parents who attended the celebration. In addition, each student did a biography project of a Tanna (a Rabbi in the Mishna) and each made a “Rabbi Card”. These cards were posted on the walls of the library. The students performed a play explaining what our Oral Torah is and how it developed. The student skits were incorporated into the play so that there was adult-generated learning as well as student-generated learning.
The students were addressed by Ruth and then received copies of Pirkei Avot which included bookplates written by their parents. All the participants and their families engaged in family learning of two mishnayot from Pirkei Avot. Then there was a discussion about the mishnayot to which both students and parents contributed. It was a lovely morning for all.
Hanukkah!
The entire JCDS community came together for our Annual Family Hanukkah Celebration, on Tuesday evening, December 15; the 5th candle of Hanukkah. Among the bright highlights of our school year, this event reflected many of our JCDS core values, while everyone present felt a shared warmth and happiness at being a part of this truly wonderful school.
Excitement for this night begins to build well before the start of Hanukkah. Earlier in December, JCDS proudly presented the voices of two student choirs: Lower School and Middle School, at Boston’s annual Kol haNeshama Jewish Day School Concert, dedicated this year to Hanukkah music, while benefiting Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center.
Since the first day of the holiday, a giant Hanukkiyah has been blossoming on the exterior front wall of the school for all to see. This Hanukkiyah certainly helps publicize the miracle of Hanukkah, as students and parents witnessed the work in progress every day, expressing a growing enthusiasm for the festival of Lights.
This evening’s celebration began with a pizza and salad dinner served by our Vaad Horim (Parent Association) followed by a range of Hanukkah activities for younger and older students. Live Hanukkah music, played by a talented band of teachers and parents, wafted through the halls heightening the festivities. In the Lower School, activities included everything from Israeli dancing, to Hanukkah stories read to Lower School students by Middle School members of our Speech Team, to a variety of Hanukkah-themed creative art projects. We even rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem with Legos and building blocks. In the Middle School, was a phenomenal “Soap Box Dreidel Derby!”
Parents, students, and teachers then gathered in our gym to light a Hanukkiyah and to join in song and sufganiyyot (Hanukkah jelly-doughnuts). Every class stood proudly and sang songs of the holiday, some familiar, some new, after which everyone took home this year’s edition of the JCDS Hanukkah song book. The gym itself, like many interior walls of our school, was adorned with colorful, creative original student art inspired by the holiday.
Our Hagigat Hanukkah demonstrates JCDS’ commitment to conduct ourselves as a joyful Jewish community, to live according to the rhythms of the Jewish year, to give prominence to music and art, and to form strong connections to Jewish tradition. We were not at all surprised to see many recent graduates among the guests….after all, who wouldn’t want to come back “home” to be with family and friends for this holiday celebration!
Mi’Dor L’Dor – 6th Grade Milestone Celebration
Our 6th graders celebrated a powerful milestone: Mi’Dor L’Dor – From Generation to Generation. This poignant event grew out of the class’ study of the book of D’varim, Deuteronomy, which tells of Moshe conveying the legacy of his teachings to B’nei Yisrael. The study also connects intellectually and spiritually to the students’ Facing History, Toshba, and Humanities curricula.
Through Facing History, students considered identity and the ways in which our stories define us. They, too, have explored how sharing our stories can reveal our identity to others as well as foster strong personal connections and communities. In Toshba, they study what constitutes Jewish identity and explore experiences, texts, and references that connect them to Judaism. In Humanities, students have read and discussed multiple narratives from a collection written by famous authors, each telling his or her story from early adolescence. These readings have helped each of them develop a sense of writing about oneself in the purest form. We are proud that our students have explored their personal and communal identities through the lens of three different and distinct classes.
The sixth graders’ transition from childhood into their B’nei Mitzvah year parallels the journey told in the Biblical text studied in class. The students interviewed family members to gather and learn stories about their own history and legacies. They then distilled these familial stories into carefully crafted essays (which were drafted, written, and edited in their Humanities class) and read them aloud at the Milestone event. Together their writings formed a beautiful tapestry of immigrant experience and family wisdom.
Another element of the Milestone also involved Tallit and Tzitzit. A week prior to the event, a panel of rabbis shared with the students their personal understandings of Tallit and Tzitzit and then answered the children’s question. Empowered with knowledge and understanding, each of these young adolescents will have to decide if, and how, to take on the Mitzvah of Tzitzit as their own Bar or Bat Mitzvah arrives.
An unadorned ‘blank’ Tallit was crafted for each student prior to the Milestone. The work on the Tallitot was done by numerous parent volunteers, and the actual design and decoration will be done by the students themselves. Parents then joined their children for Torah study on the Mitzvah of Tzitzit, and the students taught their parents how to tie Tzitzit on the corner of their new garments..
Integral to the meaning of the Milestone was for students to discern the most salient and personal elements of Jewish life and experiences in their own Jewish identities. Their conclusions were displayed during Friday’s event in a powerful slide show made by the students.
As at all JCDS Milestone events, the students were given the gift of a book from the school. The 6th graders received a Tikkun, the text from which one prepares a Torah reading for public recitation. With this gift, the school expressed its commitment that every student will learn Torah with depth and precision and will recite it, and live it, in her or his own voice.
To conclude the program, each student recited the verse from D’varim: “Ask your ancestors and they will tell you, your elders and they will tell the story…” (32:7). Our Mi’Dor L’Dor Celebration powerfully conveyed that the study of Torah and Jewish practice emerge from a living context reaching back across generations and continents. It expressed, too, that each of us has a story to tell and that each of us, in our unique way, contributes to the story.
6th Grade at TEVA
From Monday, November 16 through Thursday, November 19 our 6th grade joined 6th graders from four other Jewish day schools for our annual trip to TEVA, an educational retreat on Judaism and the environment held at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Connecticut. The TEVA program is a wonderful example of integrated education. TEVA educators conduct intense days of creative programming — from hikes to skits to songs to farming and natural remedies — and make every moment a fun and teachable one. We are especially proud that Martha Schwarz, JCDS ‘05, is among the professional educators on the program. The main goals are to cultivate in our students the core ecological values of Awareness, Interconnectedness, and Responsibility. At TEVA, these values emerge out of an explicitly spiritual Jewish language. In that sense, the students learn a new language at TEVA, or at least a new vocabulary. Two teachers and two 6th grade parents joined the 6th grade as chaperones. We look forward to bringing the power of TEVA back home to JCDS.
JCDS Teacher Wins Award
JCDS is very proud that Eliana Lipsky, Middle School Tanakh and History teacher, has been selected as this year’s recipient of the Samuel A. Nemzoff Book Prize by Gateways, Access to Jewish Education. The prize honors a teacher whose work exemplifies best practices in giving all students access to a Jewish education. Eliana is being recognized for her outstanding work in differentiating instruction so that every student can learn in the best way for her or himself. Eliana’s award also recognizes her leadership among the faculty in this area. Eliana has taught at JCDS since 2005 and also serves as an advisor in the Middle School. A contingent of teachers and administration attended the November 8th Gateways event at which Eliana was honored, and JCDS had to good fortune that our Klezstock student Klezmer band was invited to be part of the musical entertainment that afternoon. Mazal Tov, Eliana!
Building the Sukkah
Long-time JCDS parent, engineering wizard, and all-around tzaddik, Gary Elovitz directs the 8th graders in assembling the JCDS Sukkah. Through the magic of power drills and group effort, the Sukkah takes shape in front of the school.
Paper chains, chains of wishes, chains of pipe cleaners, Ushpizin cut-outs, and more snake out of classrooms and onto the Sukkah’s walls, or dangle from its roof. Rain makes the decorations a bit soggy, but beautification efforts and valiant and ongoing.
In T’fillot, students eagerly pass sets of lulavim and etrogim to one another so everyone has a chance to perform the very strange, very beautiful, and very rustle-y act that declares, depending on one’s belief: All of Nature is One; God is round about; the Jewish People are One; Here I am doing what Jews have done for a very long time!
Chagigat Rosh Hashana
Anticipating the start of the new year 5770, all students and staff gathered to sing, exchange Rosh HaShanah blessings, recite kiddush, and of course eat apples dipped in honey. In mixed-grade pairings, the entire student body learned stories and texts teaching hope and confidence that we can bring our best to the new year. Shanah tovah to all!
