CJDS Ma Koreh Weekly Newsletter

Ma Koreh /What’s Happening?

Weekly CJDS Newsletter

D’var Kesher from the Head of School

Dr. Tali Zelkowicz

May 23, 2019 / 18 Iyar, Lag (33rd) Day of the Omer

Parashat Behar, Leviticus/Vayikra 25:1-26:2

D'VAR KESHER

Not All Day Schools Are Like This

Greetings!

Faculty, parents, students, grandparents and family of our students, alumni parents and students, and dear friends and supporters of CJDS, I thank you for the great honor of leading this wonder-filled learning community.

Beginning this past Sunday with the CJDS student theater club’s spectacular performance of Jungle Book Kids before a standing room only audience, to Lag B’Omer today and Arts Night this evening, to the powerful and moving annual Butterfly Release Ceremony tomorrow, and the Color Run, Graduation and Final Kadima Assembly next week, the CJDS school year concludes with a very full array of events that bring us all together.

I would be remiss if I did not also let you know that on June 2, we will be hosting a Butterfly Extravaganza and Concert event for families with preschoolers (siblings are of course welcome), to give young families a chance to encounter our incredible campus, faculty, and exciting educational program. This year, we are incredibly fortunate to add a concert led by our very own Cantor Bat-Ami Moses with guitarist Chad Greenwald. Kids and adults will also be able to study and observe live species and meet the scientist - OSU entomologist (and incoming kindergarten parent!) Dr. Frances Sivakoff. There will also be nature exploration at our pond, butterfly cookie decorating, and butterfly theater with Giselle D'Souza (Siegel) of the JCC Gallery Players, and much more.

As we come together for these many and varied end of year events, I am filled with gratitude. Over these past three years as your Head of School, I have had the rare opportunity to “go native” in my research area of identity formation in the context of Jewish day school education. Among the vast treasure trove of insights I have gained from being inside Jewish day school leadership, there is one, in particular, that strikes me as paramount:

Ultimately, the power of a phenomenal progressive Jewish day school education is not only about integrating curriculum, it’s about integrating people.

Curriculum design must always be a means to that higher end. Too often, secular and Jewish educations compete (especially for time) under Jewish day school roofs, resulting not in dual, but dueling, curriculum. What attracted me instantly to CJDS was its bold living and intense laboratory for collaboration and integration. What makes CJDS so unique, at least in part, is that our students experience neither a dueling nor a dual curriculum; they experience simply and so profoundly, one whole organic American Jewish life woven with care, purpose, love, rigor and depth.

“You know that not all day schools are like this, right? I wish there had been a school like this for me to send my own children to. You should be writing about this school; this should be the model. People need to know about this.”

Those were words passionately declared by Dr. Susannah Heschel to Susan Couden and me at the end of a tour of CJDS that we felt so fortunate to give. Dr. Heschel is an American scholar and the Eli Black professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. She is also the daughter of Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel z”l, the great 20th century philosopher, rabbi and activist who marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama with Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and whose ideas inform our very vision and mission at CJDS.

Earlier this year, our principal, Rachel Arcus-Goldberg, wrote a beautiful Dvar Kesher called "Covered with Meaning" where she described "falling in love all over again" when she gives tours of CJDS, because she sees the school anew each time. Rachel captured something so real and true. Every time, we get to see and feel, all over again, that “not all Jewish Day Schools are like this.”

Rachel and I continue to work together closely and are so excited as we plan for the next chapter of CJDS under her extremely talented leadership. This summer, as you read in CJDS Board Chair, Ruth Rubin’s letter in December, my role at the school will shift to Strategic Advisor for this coming academic year. On July 1, Rachel will officially assume the Headship of CJDS and take the school into its 22nd year.

Rachel is ready to continue the sacred work of strengthening and growing our beloved school. Next year marks her third year at CJDS, and I am every day inspired by her vision for our future that is firmly anchored in the Heschel-based pluralistic, integrated, egalitarian, philosophy of rigorous academic whole child curriculum that we inherited proudly from our school’s founders, Tobi Gold and Danny Kayne. Rachel takes these values very seriously and is growing the school masterfully around those core commitments for contemporary 2020 and beyond realities, trends, and needs.

I will continue to be working with the school next year in a strategic capacity and will be on campus two days a week. Next year, as you know, I will also be joining the education team at The Wexner Foundation, which is less than a mile down the road from CJDS. I will be serving in a newly created position, focused on curriculum design and researching and developing distance learning initiatives. While I am thrilled to be gradually moving towards a full-time position that draws on my leadership skills as an education academic, there is a long list of Team CJDS highlights that have filled my heart professionally and stimulated my educational imagination in unprecedented ways. HERE are but a few of those many collaborations which I will carry with me forever.

Not all day schools are like ours.

We heard this from Susannah Heschel, but we also heard it from the amazing range of leaders, thinkers, artists, and athletes from all over the country and the world whom we welcomed to our campus in the past several years, including Hanoch Piven, Oded Hirsch, Rabbi Matt Berkowitz, Mor Sapir, and others. And I, for one, plan to continue writing about the school, both as a professional and as a parent. I hope you’ll join me.

Again, I want to express my deepest thanks for the immense privilege of leading our learning community. And it is an equally great honor to pass the mantle of leadership to Ms. AG!

I am looking forward to coming together at all the different end of year events, and to moving forward with you! Kadima!

Shabbat Shalom,

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CJDS UPDATE

SAVE THE DATE!

Submit a name for our Butterfly Release Ceremony HERE

Memorialize a loved one

Friday, May 24 at 1:30 p.m.

Special thanks to our 2019 event sponsor, Insect Lore

We remember loved ones through the acts of loving-kindness we perform in this world. In keeping with CJDS' tradition, we invite you to attend our Annual Remembrance and Butterfly Release on Friday, May 24 from 1:30-2:20 p.m. During the event, name(s) of people you wish to have memorialized are read aloud as each butterfly is released.

We encourage you to attend this event to personally memorialize your loved ones.

WHAT: A 1 mile run/walk around the scenic CJDS campus (where you will get multiple multi colored cornstarch thrown on your shirt, at different color stations along the run/walk)
WHEN: Tuesday, May 28
TIME: Just after school at 3:30 p.m. (ending at 4:15 p.m.)
WHO: CJDS students, parents, siblings, alumni, faculty, staff, and friends! Not a runner? No worries! Color “runs” are a blast for everyone.
COST: Suggested donation of $15.00 per runner (checks payable to CJDS)
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: Monday, May 20

Please remember to wear a white shirt, something you would not mind having ruined!

Proceeds from the CJDS Color Run benefit our school by making our building a greener facility.

Alumni Pizza Party!

Thursday, May 30, 2019 at 6:00 p.m.

RSVP for the Alumni Pizza Party HERE

Come back to CJDS to celebrate the CJDS class of 2019! Enjoy some pizza and salad with Eran, see your friends and teachers, and reminisce as you walk around the campus and the hallways of CJDS.

We can't wait to see you!

LOOKING AHEAD

MAY

Friday, May 24: Memorial Day Assembly 11:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

Friday, May 24: CJDS Annual Butterfly Release 1:30 p.m.-2:20 p.m.

Monday, May 27: Memorial Day NO SCHOOL

Tuesday, May 28: CJDS Color Run 3:30 p.m.

Thursday, May 30: 6th Grade Graduation 7:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m.

Friday, May 31: Last Day Kadima Assembly 10:45 a.m.-12:00 Noon Dismissal

JUNE

Sunday, June 2: CJDS Butterfly Extravaganza & Concert at CJDS, 10:00 a.m.-11:30 a.m.

LIVING OUR MISSION

KINDERGARTEN

FIRST

SECOND

THIRD & FOURTH

FIFTH

SIXTH

CJDS SPOTLIGHT: FIRST GRADE

Recyclable Fashion Show

Our 1st graders essential question is

“How do we build a community?”

This question helps the children think about the ways they can help the community they live in. One way is by recycling and reusing materials and encouraging others to do so as well. To prepare for the Recyclable Fashion Show, students worked hard at home to create outfits made from recyclable materials and wrote their own outfit descriptions, which were read as they walked down the runway. They also prepared poems in English and Hebrew to encourage others to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Hopefully their outfits will inspire you to recycle or reuse materials in a creative way. Click on the image below to see more images of our Recyclable Fashion Show.

CJDS CLUBS

Lunch & Recess Clubs

MONDAY RECESS: Dance Club with Ms. AG & Katie Feldstein
WEDNESDAY LUNCH: Tzedakah Club with Susan Couden & Rabbi Sharon Barr Skolnik
THURSDAY RECESS: Journalism Club with Dr. Denae D'Arcy
FRIDAY RECESS: Choir with Angelo Dunlap

LIFECYCLES

SHARE YOUR NEWS WITH CJDS HERE

LIFECYCLES In our community, at every point, our families are perpetually entering new stages in their lives. In keeping with the tradition of living Jewishly, CJDS acknowledges, honors, and celebrates these moments: Births, B’nei Mitzvah, graduations, marriages, and in moments of illness, healing and loss.

MAZAL TOV!

To CJDS grandparent, Ron Solove on becoming the President of the Tifereth Israel Board of Trustees.

To CJDS alumna, Tal Mars (2014) who was recently selected to be part of The Bronfman Fellowship! For more information on this prestigious fellowship, please check out the following link— https://buff.ly/2LNq42w

HAKARAT HATOV The Hebrew term for gratitude is הַכָּרַת הַטוֹב (Hakarat HaTov), which means "recognizing the good."

To past CJDS Faculty member, Eva Tibor for her volunteer support in the CJDS art room, and for helping to preparing student artwork for CJDS Arts Night.

To Steve Shkolnik for his help and support with our facility.

KESHER: CJDS Parent Organization

Oakland Nursery

Gift Cards

Get all of your spring gardening needs and benefit the CJDS Environmental Education Program!

Click here to order your gift cards.

Purchase Oakland Nursery gift cards through CJDS and we will keep 20% of the profits!

Cards are $20.00 each.

Checks should be made payable to CJDS for the desired amount.

Your gift cards may be picked up at the CJDS front desk, or mailed home to you within two weeks.

Volunteer to serve lunch HERE

HOT LUNCH

As in the past, we are so grateful to all the help from the community members - grandparents, friends, parents, and others – on whom we rely to serve hot lunch to our students. Our volunteers bring such a warmth and love to our students and we love having all of you! In order to make this sign-up process even more smooth this year, we would love each family (any family member or friend) to sign up for two dates during the whole year to serve lunch. It can be a parent, a grandparent, a special friend - anyone who is interested in spending time with our wonderful students and serving them food.

KESHER

CJDS is proud to have a Parent Organization called Kesher (Hebrew for "connection"). Kesher has a team of grade representatives led by a president.

Kesher is responsible for the CJDS Hot Lunch program, social gatherings outside of school, teacher appreciation, the CJDS Chesed committee and more! To get involved, please be in touch HERE.