Last week, I experimented with isolating myself further. We are fortunate to have ample space in our Brooklyn apartment in this time of quarantine, and I decided to take advantage of it. I hauled my computer and my personal hotspot into our back room, which has in it only a folding table, a single chair…
(JTA) — The roof of the Milwaukee Jewish Day school collapsed, sending steel beams and debris crashing down into a classroom, a week before the start of school. Two staff members were in the classroom on Friday preparing for the start of school, but left when they heard creaking noises, according to local reports. Moments…
(JTA) — An Orthodox girls’ school in Brooklyn has installed bullet-resistant classroom doors to keep out shooters. Bnos Menachem in the heavily Hasidic Crown Heights neighborhood is the first of more than 50 Jewish schools and synagogues in Brooklyn to have the 150-pound metal doors installed by an Israel-based manufacturer, the New York Post reported…
At least one student from every graduating class at Carmel Academy has enlisted in the military. That wouldn’t be so remarkable if Carmel were a public school, or a large private school in an area with relatively high enlistment rates. But Carmel is a Jewish day school in Connecticut with 200 total graduates, 13 of…
It is hard to believe, but there is no agreed-upon curriculum in the Jewish education system in the United States. In the few schools where the idea of a curriculum exists, it usually presents the following problems: There is no K-12 curriculum. Rather, pre-school usually focuses on language skills and holidays, while elementary school and…
When you see a parent with a child who has a cognitive and/or physical disability at your supermarket, playground or synagogue, how do you react? Do you look away or make eye contact? Do you smile and say hello—or move away from them quickly? In the last decade, our synagogues, JCCs, camps and schools have…
Dozens of police officers and state troopers stood near a giant dreidel in Brooklyn after the Jewish Children’s Museum received an anonymous e-mail warning of three pipe bombs inside the building. Among the onlookers on Eastern Parkway was a 13-year-old Orthodox boy wearing a black felt hat and riding a scooter. He said he’d had…
The estrangement of Jewish youth from the Jewish community is an issue of concern for all of us. While we differ in how that sense of belonging should be expressed, we all want our children to self-identify as members of that unique society of mutual responsibility and reliance that is the Jewish people. For some…
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