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The Charlotte Jewish News - March 2008 - Page 9 Levin Middle School and CJDS Support Israeli Soldiers Purim Operation 2008 is a worldwide project where Jewish schools adopt Israeli Army units by sending let ters and Purim baskets to each soldier. At $10 per sol dier, $500 is needed for a typical 50-person unit. Andrew Klein, a Charlotte native who served in the IDF, was kind enough to come to school and offer Andrew Klein talks to CJDS 4th and 5th several touching stories grade students. about how encouraging it was to receive letters from Jewish stu dents during his tour of duty. Our middle school students, along with 4th and 5th graders of Charlotte Jewish Day School, wrote 50 letters of encouragement, in Hebrew, for the soldiers. This project became part of Morah Donna deGroot’s classroom cur riculum. The main fundraising event was a bake sale by 4th and 5th grade that made it possible for the entire student body to support the sol diers while enjoying tasty treats. They raised more than $200. The students raised the remaining funds by doing odd jobs at home. The students are looking for ward to receiving a picture of their soldiers holding their Purim bas kets. The school will also receive a commendation from the IDF for its participation in the Connections Israel project. ^ Top Ten Reasons Not to Send Your Children to a Jewish Day School We would like to share with you an article from a recent edition of The Jewish Advocate by Judy Bolton-Fasman, who is a member of the boards of the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston and Temple Emanuel in Newton, MA. While her “list” refers mainly to the Solomon Schechter School, she addresses issues that parents face in all Jewish day schools. Grocery lists, wish lists, to-do lists: I’m into lists. I particularly like David Letterman’s “Top Ten Lists.” This week, I’m poaching Letterman’s concept to bring you my “Top Ten Reasons Not to Send Your Children to a Jewish Day School.” Let’s start with reason number 10 and work our way up. 10. Your children will be excited to go to synagogue. Harbor this illusion and you will be very disappointed. If you ask your children, to attend syna gogue with you on Saturday morn ing, they will say things like, “I already prayed at school.” But just as you are despairing that you have invested in their Jewish edu cation the equivalent of paying for a second home on the Cape, they spontaneously sing a beautiful rendition of “Adorn 01am” in the shower, and it will be worth it. This is what Abraham Joshua Heschel calls “radical amaze ment” - a poignant, exquisite moment that restores your faith in the world. 9. Your children will log less classroom time on secular sub jects and therefore lag behind in the three “Rs.” I heard that some ambitious parent once figured out that kids at Schechter actually had only a cou ple hours less instruction a week in secular subjects than their pub lic and private school peers. I don’t know if that’s accurate, but it’s irrelevant. Even when my chil dren are in Hebrew classes, I’m reassured that they are learning to use a full complement of analyti cal and interpretive skills. And they’re doing it in a second lan guage. 8. Your children will be better behaved. Sorry, kids are kids. The salu tary effects of integrating Jewish values into a grade-school curricu lum may not be immediately noticeable. But like a photograph developing in a chemical bath, those values will gradually emerge in your children’s lives. 7. Your children will not be with a diverse group of kids. Your children will go to school with Jewish kids. But at Schechter alone there are nine foreign lan guages spoken among the parent body. Parents and children there come from five continents. You do the math. 6. Your children will be shel tered from the real world. Again, not my experience at Conservative Jewish day school that makes a point of giving kids a 21st century education in both sec ular and Judaic subjects. Your children will almost certainly become empathetic and very aware of their responsibility to engage in “Tikkun Olam” - repair ing the world. They may interview Holocaust survivors for a social studies project one week and then participate in a day of community service the next. 5. Your children are with the same group of kids from kinder garten through eighth grade. And the problem with that is what exactly? Forming life-long friendships? Having more sibling like relationships during the hor mone-laden middle school years? And there’s a payoff for parents, too-the time to build solid com munity. 4. Your children will become more religious than you. It’s more accurate to say that your children will probably know more Hebrew than you do. Children will also engage in deep er text study than many of their parents have. But, that’s a good thing. I think, in the end, Judaism will be organic to their lives and in the process you’ll learn some thing, too. You may even want to expand your knowledge of Hebrew or Torah through adult education courses. Imagine that. 3. You’ll go broke trying to pay tuition. I’m not going to fool you, like any private school, sending kids to day school costs money. But on the other hand, no day school that I know of turns a family away because they can’t come up with the full tuition. That being said. I’m of the “if you build it, they will come” mindset. If you decide to send your children to day school, you’ll find a feasible and comfortable way to do it. 2. Your children will have a difficult transition into a public or independent school. The anecdotal evidence I have collected over the years emphati cally disproves this point. In fact, I’ve heard kids say that they feel well-prepared academically as well as socially to move on. It’s not perfect-sometimes it takes a while to find a comfortable niche. But that’s life in any high school, Jewish or otherwise. And the number one reason for not sending your children to a Jewish day school. 1. It will be a breeze to bring up my children if they attend a Jewish day school. More than any other school, a Jewish day school will support you in raising a compassionate, ethical, and literate Jew. But you still have to do the hard work of parenting. Sending your children to day school does not preclude them from having the same com plicated emotional lives of kids everywhere. Please note that I brought nine years of hard-earned yet subjec tive wisdom to producing this list. And like Letterman’s lists, it is not what it appears to be at first glance. But then again, we parents know that most things never are.^ri Reprinted with permission from the November 30, 2007 issue of The Jewish Advocate. Brianna Weitz and teacher Channie Weiss display their baked goods for the sale. Residential & Commercial Real Estate Services Yuriy & Luda Vaynshteyn Brokers/Owners 704-293-3600 704-277-4140 Jewish Owned & Operated Real Estate Compan : Primary Reildetrce : Estate Lots & Custom Homes ; Uptown Condos Lake Wylie & Norman Homes Second Homes B Retail & Office Leasing | Retail Development Business Investments Land Acquisition | Property Management Carolinas Metro Realty Fox Run BussHtfjss Pdfk % t7232Uwc»stfi’tiwy, Suit! 108Ct«rtono,NC2S277 Rhone: 900-611-7210 'a838K.ii9sRd.Soitt;-a Myrtle Bc-ach, SC 2vtv hfoW'Corofif'USMotro.COrP
The Charlotte Jewish News (Charlotte, N.C.)
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March 1, 2008, edition 1
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