Over 800 students in kindergarten through eighth grade and girls high school from Hillel Academy, Yeshiva and CDS celebrated the Jewish holiday of Lag BaOmer together on Thursday, May 10 at the CDS field.
The festivities included live music, singing and a trapeze artist. The three day schools each helped plan the event as part of the Pittsburgh Jewish Day School Council, a committee convened by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh to coordinate shared resources amongst the schools. The Lag BaOmer program ended with a group photograph of the 800 students, the first such photograph in Pittsburgh's history.
"As Lag BaOmer commemorates the culmination of a plague that befell Rabbi Akiva's 24,000 students because of their collective discord, it is an especially important day to celebrate community unity and cohesiveness," said Daniel Kraut, CEO of Hillel. "It may not seem like a big deal to plan a program with three day schools, but this highlights a tremendous landmark for the community. Not all communities have such open dialogue."
UJF Staff
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For Yom HaAtzmaut this year the Kindergarten through 6th grades of Hillel Academy planned to take a hike through Eretz Yisrael. After fortifying ourselves with a nourishing falafel lunch, followed by blue and white Rita's ices, we set out on our hike through Eretz Yisrael. Just as the hike started, we had to stop. We noticed that seven teachers were "missing." We went to the shul to work on a new plan. Rabbi Nimchinsky said, we would continue our hike through the cities of Eretz Yisrael and look for the "missing teachers" at the same time. We each received a tour book which described seven cities and clues to where each of the missing teachers may be located. While we visited each city, we participated in a learning activity to discover more about that city and Eretz Yisrael.
We found Rabbi Brodie in Yerushalayim where he told us stories about some of the gedolim who lived there. Mr. Kingman was in Tel Aviv where we picked up and decorated some hiking supplies (backpacks and visors) for the long hike ahead. We found Mr. Logue in Tzfat where we watched a video made by the eighth grade girls about the weather in different parts of Eretz Yisrael. We found Mrs. Mogan in the Hula Valley where we learned about the Mitzvah of Hafrashat Challah. We found Mr. Garwood in Caesarea where we learned about the geography of Eretz Yisrael while playing games on a giant map. Mrs. Kirk was enjoying the hospitality near Aishel Avraham in Be'er Sheva, where we had a taste of Eretz Yisrael and drank orange juice we squeezed ourselves in an orange squeezing contest. Finally, Reb Shaw was located in a naval training base in Eilat where he helped us participate in navy boot camp. Yom HaAtzmaut turned out to be a busy afternoon of hiking, finding missing teachers, learning about Eretz Yisrael, and having fun. ![]()
As part of our unit on Community Helpers, Pre-K has had many visitors from around the neighborhood. Recently, Police Officer White, from the Pittsburgh Police Department, visited the Isadore Joshowitz Early Childhood Center to talk about the importance of his job. He told the kids about calling 9-1-1 in the event of an emergency. He also explained that the best thing to do if a stranger tries to take them, or harm them in any way, is to yell "fire" as loud as they can. He then reminded us that guns are not safe, and if we ever see one, we shouldn't touch it, and should go straight to a familiar adult to tell them about it. Lastly, Officer White showed us the tools he uses to help keep us safe.
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Fusing Brachos with Bein Adam L’Chaveiro
The class based program has each student learning about brachos and meeting grade appropriate goals set by their teachers. The students’ accomplishments combine with those of their classmates to gain recognition and gain points for their class. Instead of pitting individual students against each other they get to work collaboratively to gain points for their class. Classes gain points when 80% of the class meets one of their class’ ten goals. The class gets bonus points if 100% of the class meets a goal. During the Tu B’shvat assembly Rabbi Nimchinsky showed the 1st through 6th grades how much amazing progress each class has made in learning Brachos. In keeping with the Tu B’shvat theme, the points are recorded as leaves and fruit pasted onto each class’ tree poster in the lunchroom. (Special thanks to the Bnot Sherut for making the wonderful tree posters, leaves, and fruit!). Each class will win prizes based on the number of points they earned. Students in Mr. Kingman's High School Geometry class used straws and string to simplify a mathematical principle. Aided by pastel colored straws, students discovered the side, side, side congruent postulate theory. Mr. Kingman explained that if three sides of a triangle are congruent, then the angles of a triangle are congruent. Ada Friedman (10th Grade, GHS) stated that is was "fun and easy to learn about congruent triangles in this way." Eliana Halley (9th Grade, GHS) added, "I tweeted about this and I got two retweets and a favorite." Mr. Kingman explained the Twitter buzz, "She has a lot of math teachers following her."
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