By Shira Deener, Head of School.

This the week, before our annual signature fundraising event, A Taste of What Really Matters, we wanted to give you a taste of what really matters here at JCDS, starting with the warmth of Aliza’s smile enveloping those who enter our school!
On Wednesday, several Middle School students took it upon themselves to continue a musical T’fillah (prayers), replete with singing and guitar strumming in the Beit Knesset (main prayer space). Classrooms are ever-abuzz with reading, writing, and arithmetic, and debates and Talmudic discourse ring out in Tanakh and Toshba classrooms. Walk into HaSadna (The Workshop), and be wowed by engineering, design thinking, and the sound of the laser printer feverishly cutting a student’s project. While you are nearby our Makerspace, peek into the gym where games, fun competitions, laughter, and movement abound. From the hallways, Israeli music can be heard, pulsating, as several dance troupes rehearse for the upcoming MIT Israeli Dance Festival, and imagine the joy and pride we felt when two of our 8th graders recently ran T’fillah instantly, without hesitation, in a Lower School classroom because the teacher had been unexpectedly called away for a few moments. Although the school day has ended, on the bus ride home, the connection continues as an 8th grader cuddles up to the 1st grader that she has been tutoring in Hebrew, all while tutoring her in Hebrew…and that’s just a taste!
Please join us on Saturday evening, March 25th, as the JCDS community celebrates as one, A Taste of What Really Matters.