Upcoming Events

• Friday, September 2 - Pre-Shabbat Open Basketball for boys with the Mechanchim

• Monday, September 5 - Labor Day - no classes

• Wednesday, September 7 - 9th grade boys' lunch with the Mechanchim (Information about special food requirements should be sent to Mechanchim Rabbi Menachem Rosenbaum or Rabbi Simcha Meyer Stromer.)

• Sunday, September 11 - Parent and Child Minyan and Learning with Rabbi Reiss - 8:20 am



• Tuesday, September 20 - Wednesday, September 21 - All school retreat at Camp Chi (Please sign up here by Friday, Sept. 2. The cost is $75 per student. If this poses a problem, please contact Associate Dean Danny Harris.)

• Monday, September 26 - Tuesday, September 27 - Rosh Hashana

• Wednesday, September 28 - Fast of Gedaliah - 2:30pm dismissal

• Tuesday, October 4 - Erev Yom Kippur - no classes

• Monday, October 10 - Wednesday, October 19 - Sukkot break

• Thursday, October 20 - Classes resume

• Wednesday, October 28 - New Parent Orientation; Senior Parent Meeting; Simulated School Night - 4:30pm dismissal

This year's freshman class is the 80th in ICJA's history!

For the 80th time in our school's history, ICJA welcomed our newest freshman class this week!  Our freshmen come from eight different middle schools and even from different states - this week they all became part of one family: the Ida Crown Jewish Academy community of learners.  Welcome!

Freshmen Elisheva Deangelis, Libby Bleichman and Rivkie Belsh sampling ICJA's Tuesday lunch menu together

Freshmen Ben Rosenberg, Aiden Rich, Zachary Fogel, Jack Marshall, Max Gorenstein and Yoshi Bernstein enjoying lunch

On Monday students came together for all school davening, followed by ice cream generously provided by ICJA Parents' Academy Associates.

On our first day of school, the entire student body came together to daven Shacharit together. Afterwards, the ICJA Parents' Academy Associates sent an ice cream truck to school to distribute treats to our students, helping get the year off to a sweet start.

Pictured above: seniors Hersh Linzer, Kenny Shapiro, Yonatan Nudman, and Daniel Carl 

Pictured above: seniors Nechama Tarshish, Yael Kolsky, Rachel Adar, Chaya Laber, and Shaina Tarshish

Students got to know new teacher Mrs. Rubin and discussed their course syllabus - all in Hebrew.

Mrs. Dana Rubin, ICJA's newest Hebrew teacher, discussed this year's syllabus with her students - using ICJA's "Ivrit B'Ivrit" ("Hebrew in Hebrew) method of teaching. 

Mrs. Rubin, originally from Jerusalem, has taught at Hebrew University and most recently at Northwestern University. This year, in addition to teaching at ICJA, she is also teaching at Loyola University Chicago.

In her class, students discussed plans to give presentations, debate pressing issues, and put on skits this year - all in Hebrew.

Students performed experiments in determining acid and base substances in order to make name tags.

Students in Mrs. Gottlieb's 10th Grade Conceptual Chemistry class started off the week by making name tags with their names written on them using an acidic substance. 

Students took pieces of goldenrod paper, which is made with a dye that's an acid/base indicator. They wrote their names with a control substance and also with an acidic solution, and watched the paper alter in color when exposed to the acid, learning about acidic/base properties and how to measure them.

Pictured above: Shaindy Berkovits and Zehava Piltz

Pictured above: Avi Chen

(Pictured above right: Eliana Ebert)

This week students used cutting edge technology to cut DNA, then analyzed the resulting fragments.

Students in Ms. Gleicher's AP Biology class read a book about CRSPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats - a family of DNA sequences) over the Summer, and put their knowledge to use this week.

Students made DNA cutting predictions based on gRNA sequences.  They then formed molecular complexes of gRNA and Cas9 (CRISPR-associated protein 9), and mixed these with with DNA samples, resulting in the DNA samples becoming severed. Students then analyzed the resulting DNA fragments, using gel electrophoresis to see if the CRISPR and guide RNA combinations successfully cut the DNA as predicted.

Pictured above: juniors Sam Gorenstein and Yonah Rubin

Pictured above: juniors Rotem Lavi, Gabrielle Sander and Jordana Zwelling

Pictured above: juniors Taly Benzaquen, Rena Neiger and senior Hadassah Bernstein

Pictured above: juniors Aiden Novick and Dori Marshall

Students discussed what a Navi (prophet) is and how many Naviim (prophets) there have been.

Mrs. Zimmerman, the newest member of our Tanach (Bible) department, began her freshman boys' Navi class by discussing what constitutes nevuah (prophecy) and how many neviim there have been in Jewish history. leading to a lively discussion.

Pictured above: Avi Rubin discussing what constitutes prophecy

Pictured above: the class, with Nate Spiegel answering a question about how many prophets the Bible contains

This week students discussed Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz's writings on Shlomo HaMelech.

Students in Mrs. Gold's senior Honors Navi class discussed the mussar insights that Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz derived from Shlomo HaMelech.  

One thought was expressed by Charli Ernstein: We should always be ready to receive knowledge. "If we want to be wiser, we need to always be ready to accept wisdom" no matter where it comes from, whether we sought it out or not. Becoming wiser means we have to "expand our horizons."

Pictured above: Charli Ernstein

Pictured above: Michal Bechhofer

Students worked on their observation skills.

This week, Mrs. Heather Hobbie, ICJA's newest English teacher, challenged her freshman concepts English class to work on their observational skills. 

Students looked at a picture of a cluttered office displayed on the whiteboard, then made a series of guesses about the person who worked there and what sort of work was being done in the office.  These skills will help as students analyze literary texts, searching for clues and themes in writing too.

Pictured above: Ori Helman

Pictured above: Jayden Perlman

Students are teaching and learning from each other.

Rabbi Katz, the newest member of ICJA's Talmud Department, introduced "jigsaw learning" in his senior boys' Honors Talmud class this weeks. 

Students began learning Masechet Brachot. Using "jigsaw learning," each chavruta (study pair) pair prepares a different section, then present their learning to the rest of the class.

Pictured above: Zach Miller and Kenny Shaprio making a point

Pictured above: Charlie Singer and Phillip Maimon answering a question

Gym is open during 5th and 6th periods - students are invited to come join a pickup game after they eat lunch.

On Thursday night, Ida Crown Girls' Club (ICGC) held its first event of the year at Navy Pier.

On Thursday night Ida Crown Girls' Club held their first event of the 2022-3 school year: an evening cruise aboard the Navy Pier Sea Dog.  

Thanks to Mrs. Gold and Mrs. Kraft, for putting this event together and to the ICGC board members who planned this via WhatsApp during their summer vacation: seniors Kayla Kupietzky and Adina Margolin; juniors Jordyn Baker, Julia Bellows, Rotem Lavi, Jordana Zwelling and Nava Cohen; and sophomores Dana Kalutsky, Daria Lennon, Talia Linzer, and Lilac Marcus. Thanks also to Mrs. Heather Hobbie, Ms. Susan Sennet, Mrs. Aliza Aberman, Mrs. Ayala Zimmerman, Mrs. Tamar Mishkin, Mrs. Olivia Friedman and Mrs. Kochava Yitzchak for joining this event.

Each year, a small number of physics teachers from around the world are invited to attend a highly prestigious program at the world's foremost particle accelerator in Switzerland - this year Mr. Sears was among them.

A few weeks ago Mr. Sears was one of only 26 high school physics teachers from across the globe who received invitations (and scholarships) to spend two weeks studying at CERN, a major research center in Switzerland. We asked him about his experience.

What is CERN? Why is it important?

CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research. They operate the Large Hadron Collider, which is the largest particle accelerator ever built. Scientists use it to study the most fundamental particles and interactions by recreating the energies present just after the “big bang.”

What is CERN’s High School Physics Teachers Program and why did you want to do it?

Every year CERN invites a group of high school teachers from around the world to experience over 70 hours of lectures, tours, and study sessions. The goal is to get more information about high energy physics into classrooms. There were a litany of reasons why I wanted to attend, but the most important to me was to make connections with other teachers from around the globe.

The program is very selective. What was the application process like?

The earliest rejection letter I have is from 2011. The application process for me involved some short essays about how I have engaged students in high energy physics topics and how the experience might affect my practice.

How many people attended the program? Where were they from?

This year there were 26 teachers from 17 different countries across five continents.

What did you learn?

Physics lecture topics included: Particle Physics, Particle Accelerators, Particle Detectors, Computing and Data Collection, Medical Applications of Particle Physics, Addressing the Green Challenge, Neutrino Physics, Antimatter, Engineering at CERN, and Mathematical Representations in Particle Physics

What was your favorite part of the program?

Meeting all of the amazing teachers on the program. We have been keeping in touch via What’s App. Since school is starting a lot of folks have been sharing first day ideas. Obviously it was thrilling to attend lectures by scientists who are giants in their field. It's also not too shabby to be able to visit all of the chocolate shops in Geneva. However, I’m a people person and the relationships are what I value most. 

What are you going to do differently in your classroom as a result of this program?

One thing that I have already done is to put up a poster of the Standard Model in my classroom. It organizes all of the known elementary particles and interactions. I would like students to be able to recognize the Standard Model as being a pivotal part of physics, just as the periodic table is pivotal to chemistry. 

I am also curious about using open data as a springboard for student research projects. It was the topic of one of our workshops.

Monday, the 2nd of Elul, 5782, August 29, 2022, in loving memory of Joe Rabinowitz, z''l, ברוך יוסף בן אבא שמואל, in honor of his Yahrzeit.

Thursday, the 5th of Elul, September 1, 2022, by Rita Katz and Family, in loving memory of Dr. Louis Jacob Katz, ICJA Class of '56, to honor his first Yahrzeit.

For more information or to sponsor a day of learning, please contact our Director of Development, Deva Zwelling, at (773) 973-1450 ext. 115, or dzwelling@icja.org.

Be sure to pick up your updated

ICJA Learning Commons passwords!

ICJA's Learning Commons contains 8,000 books and tens of thousands of online books, journal articles and other resources, including subscriptions to newspapers such as The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the Encyclopedia Britannica, and more.  

Please stop by our librarian Mrs. Steinberg's desk in the Learning Commons or email her to pick up your updated passwords to access our online material. ICJA's subscriptions are available at icja.libguides.com/home.

This summer, ICJA gave its Class of '22 alumni the second edition of our directory listing ICJA alumni who live in Israel and have graciously offered to open their homes to recent ICJA grads who are currently spending a gap year in Israel.

Thank you to the many alumni who have reached out to us, offering to host.

The directory was sent out to the emails of '22 grads that we have on file. If you have any questions or would like to update our contact information to help recent ICJA grads obtain a copy, please contact Dr. Yvette Miller, ICJA Director of Communications, at ymiller@icja.org.

We are still taking submissions from alumni who are willing to host, to include in future copies of this directory.  Please contact Dr. Miller to be included.