What's New at Temple Beth Or Religious School

- Elie Weisel

How do you honor the day of Yom Hashoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day - with kindergarteners through 9th grade? Gently and with great care.

Today we created a moving and important ritual to honor those who died in the Shoah. We are blessed at this congregation to have a torah saved from Czechoslovakia during the Holocaust. Today we turned down the lights in the sanctuary and as we read kaddish, passed the torah from child to child from the darkness of the sanctuary to the light of the open ark. The message is clear - we are the carriers of hope for the torah and Judaism. Even as we honor the dead, we support with our hands and hearts the torah which will help us to live in the light.

To share such a moment with our children is the greatest message of hope that I could imagine.

Be well,

Rabbi David Burstein

Spotlight on First Grade

It's hard to believe that Passover is over and that 3/4 of the school year has gone. I feel that we have accomplished so much this year but there is so much more to do. We have been very busy beavers during the cold winter months. The first grade class spent a lot of time learning their parts for their Friday Shabbat service.They all did splendidly. I was very proud of them standing on the bema and reading their parts.

While it was snowing, we learned more about our biblical roots with stories of Abraham , Lot, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. We studied additional Jewish Holidays to include Tu'BiShevat, Purim and Passover. We even had a food tasting of fruits grown in Israel for Tu'biShevat. The children all went home to tell their parents how we attempted to open up a coconut in the classroom with a hammer and nail.

For Passover - we made pizza matzo or is it matzo pizza? It tasted great. Would you believe we have finished 3/4 of the Hebrew Alphabet?

You may think that there are just a few more weeks of school left, so what is there to do? Topics that we will be delving into will include introducing Yom Hashoah as well as learning about Shavuot, and Israel Independence Day. We also need to enact Shabbat and Havdalah in our classroom and there still is the rest of the alphabet. The question is not what is there to do but can we squeeze it all in.

- Myrna Schutzbank, First Grade Instructor

Tzedakah Box Decoration Contest Winners

Congratulations to the following classes who participated in the tzedakah box decoration contest:

Preschool - "Most Photogenic"
First Grade - "Most Colorful"
Second Grade - "Most Reminiscent of Israel"
Third Grade - "Best 3-D Art"
Fifth Grade - "Best Representation of King David"
Seventh Grade - "Most Original Jewish Connection"
Ninth Grade - "Most Creative and Most Interactive"

BOTY Canned Food Drive

Bring in any type of canned or non-perishable food item and the class that raises the most canned food wins a pizza party from BOTY. Bring in your donations between April 26 and May 10.

Pre-registration is coming!

May 3, 10 and 17 are pre-registration days for next year's Religious School and Hebrew School. (Religious School begins on September 13, 2009, by the way!)

To kick it up a notch, this year's forms are pre-printed with all your student's information. You need only to verify nothing has changed, make any corrections necessary and sign. Easy!

Pre-planning for next year's classes is very important to us. Please help us by stopping by the registration tables in the lobby during one of these mornings and registering your students now for the 2009-2010 school year.

Grade Four Culimination Project

Parents and students are invited to view fourth grade students' culimination project display in the hallway opposite the courtyard on May 10, from 11:45 to 12:30 pm.

Come join us!