May 26
Jeanette Friedmanlocal stories/community
As the rain drummed on the roof of the YM-YWHA of North Jersey in Wayne last Tuesday night, more than 95 students and parents of the Gerrard Berman Day School Solomon Schechter presented “How the Fiddler Got On the Roof” to a packed house. The play was written by fifth- through eighth-graders under the direction of their teachers.
Rachel Greenwald, one of the directors of the play and a member of the triumvirate responsible for it, told The Jewish Standard, “Our play is an imaginative history of theater from the time of the caveman to modern Broadway.”
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May 26
Jeanette Friedmanlocal stories/community
The Jewish Standard
As teens get set to head to college, where they’re likely to discover that Israel issues push hot buttons and controversy rages around them, community leaders and teachers have been trying to prepare them for what they will see and hear. During a Sunday bagel brunch at Ma’ayanot, 100 high school juniors and seniors were led through exercises designed to teach them to respond effectively to Israel’s critics and provided with folders packed with information. Joy Kurland, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of UJA Federation of Northern New Jersey, called the meeting “just the first step in a program that we hope will prepare students” when they are confronted by “anti-Israel protestors on campuses around the country.”
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Apr 16
Jeanette Friedmanlocal stories/community
The Shul Within A Shul
by Jeanette Friedman
The chants of morning services led by Cantor Ya’akov Cohen filled the new Sephardic sanctuary at Cong. Ahavath Torah in Englewood on Sunday as congregants slowly filled the synagogue and the women’s balcony. They were coming to celebrate the dedication of the Benaroya Sephardic Center, a project that took root in a neighbor’s basement 27 years ago and came to full fruition last weekend.
Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, who presides over one community with four separate congregations under the Ahavath Torah roof, noted in his homily that the completion of the Sephardic Center and sanctuary also completes the vision of a diverse, yet unified, Jewish community.
Linda Benaroya, who greeted many of the women by name as they entered the ezrat nashim, the women’s section, said that “perhaps the best way to describe what we have here, multiple synagogues under one roof, is to call it a synaplex. We really appreciate our community’s uniqueness as a melting pot.” There had been some thought of building a separate Sephardic shul in another location, she said, but “Ahavath Torah had been our home, almost from the beginning, and we didn’t want to leave. This is a special place with beautiful, positive energy.”
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Apr 09
Jeanette Friedmaneducation, local stories/community
by jeanette friedman
It’s a rite of passage for Yavneh Academy’s eighth-graders that is now in its 30th year: creating and performing an original Holocaust-themed play before hundreds of people.
More than 1,400 people attended two performances of “Hiding the Hellers” last week presented by Yavneh’s 80 graduating middle-school students. Based on the book “Clara’s Story,” by Holocaust survivor Clara Heller Isaacman as told to Joan Adess Grossman, the play told of the Heller family and their trials and tribulations as they faced almost certain death from betrayers and Nazis in Antwerp, Belgium. By the end of the play, the head of the family had been murdered by a trusted colleague in the diamond business and Heshie, the oldest son, had died in a forced labor camp very near the end of the war.
The play was preceded by a traditional Holocaust candlelighting ceremony with three generations of survivor families and a double recitation of the El Moleh Rachamim prayer — one for the Torah the school rescued from the Nazi warehouses in Prague and one for the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust.
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Apr 03
Jeanette Friedmanlocal stories/community
More than 400 folks turned up at Prospect Park Sunday morning, got their little digital chips attached to their sneakers and in separate races for men and women, took off on 5K (3.5 mile) race organized by JRunners. The goal was to raise money for an Orthodox drop-in center that takes 700 kids (including some 80 young women) off the streets and gets them back into living full and successful lives.
Aron pushes his grandfather Avraham to the start line.
Three amazing personalities: Avraham Silverman, an 88-year old World War II vet in a wheelchair who served in North Africa and Italy, his grandson Aron, who credits Our Place with saving his life and Sam, a 500 lb. bundle of energy and Our Place regular, all determined to complete the race for the cause, were the stars at this gathering.
Sam readies for the race.
Our Place is looking for the public’s assistance, since drastic budget cuts on federal, state and municipal levels have starved Our Place of the funds needed to counsel and refer lost kids for treatment and vocational training that will help them realize their full potential.
Avi Fishof, executive director of Our Place, said that much more money is needed to keep the program in place. $1 million is needed annually to maintain the status quo of servicing 700 children a year. They are reluctant to turn anyone away, because that could cost a child his or her life.
State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke, Assemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs, and Councilman David Greenfield were on hand for the send-off with promises from Greenfield of a $5k matching grant for Our Place. Runners came from as far away as New Jersey, Rockland County and the Five Towns in order to make the race a financial success, have fun and enjoy the run–but they were serious about the cause.
See more here: http://prospectheights.patch.com/articles/500-pound-man-88-year-old-war-vet-to-join-prospect-park-run-for-charity
http://bed-stuy.patch.com/articles/a-run-to-save-our-place
http://www.charity-charities.org/news.php?artid=954536
There was also a spot on News12NY.
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