About 2 miles west of the Delaware River, eight deaf Jewish girls sit circled on a gym floor, tossing plastic fruits and vegetables at each other. Zissy Moskowitz, one of two interpreters for the group, walks around the circle, taking pictures for a blog the girls’ parents have been following for two weeks now. Moskowitz,…
In a country where residential ZIP codes have long dictated public school zoning, the education reform movement in recent years has also brought to the forefront a notion of school choice in which families can decide where to send their children to school on public dollars, regardless of where they live. Charter schools, which are…
Just in time for back-to-school this fall, a New York politician is trying to pass a bill that would require Mayor Bill de Blasio to fund the same security in private schools that public schools have access to already. City Councilman David Greenfield sponsored the bill, known as Intro 65, to address what he saw…
“Fell in love” is how a handful of teachers, largely from the United States and the United Kingdom, describe their first-time experience in Israel. That love is what has brought them back to the Holy Land summer after summer — not for vacation, but to educate hundreds of Israeli children, regardless of religion or socioeconomics….
It’s common for young Jews to study Hebrew until the age of 13 — and then never interact with the language again. Hebrew school students learn the alphabet, but often have little understanding of what the prayers mean. Having a conversation in modern Hebrew is a long shot. This phenomenon raises questions about the priorities…
“Listen closely. Can you hear the heels of the ruby red shoes clicking?” Dennis Francis, a formerly incarcerated inmate turned poet, asked a packed, silent classroom in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens. “There’s no place like homeless shelters, there’s no place like homeless shelters.” It was a Wednesday afternoon at the The Fortune…
On the surface, Asher Ehrman had a great childhood in Monsey, New York. Growing up in an Orthodox family, his parents loved him and his sister. It had its ups and downs, but until he was about 13 or 14, he really couldn’t complain. But then he came home wearing a blue shirt instead of…
Faigy Mayer took her own life on July 20, . Despite its geographical proximity to her birthplace, she was light years from her roots. Faigy was born into a Hasidic family in Brooklyn and didn’t mince words about her former life in what amounted to a suicide note posthumously published soon after her death. In…
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