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MARCH 7, 2019 | The Jewish Home
Around the Community
YCQ Girls’ Torah Bowl Meet
Replicas of the Mishkan
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By Sarah Owadeyah and Miriam Siegman
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orah Bowl is an extracurricular activity where a group of middle school students work hard learning extra Torah. Yeshiva of Central Queens competes against several different Yeshivot including Flatbush, Manhattan Day School, and Ramaz. We won three out of four competitions, losing the last one by only one point. On February 7 we had our third Torah Bowl meet of the year. For this meet we learned parashiot Mishpatim, Terumah, and Tetzaveh. In Parashat Mishpatim we learned a lot of Jewish laws. In Terumah we
learned about the Mishkan and the vessels of the Mishkan. In Tetzaveh we learned about the Kohen Gadol’s clothing and how they were made. The playoffs are in a few weeks, and we are tied for first place with the Yeshiva of Flatbush. We are very excited that we are in first place, and we are very proud of what we’ve accomplished this year. Our team’s goal is to work hard, win the playoffs, and get into the championship. Esther Nazarov who is on the girls’ Torah bowl team, said, “I love being on Torah Bowl. The happiness inside of me is unexplainable for how far we’ve come.” The team’s hard work and determination under our coaches has really paid off.
he sixth graders in BYAM are learning about the Mishkan and its keilim in Chumash. They learned all the intricate details and function of each keili and then had an exciting project to build replicas and help them visualize the building of the Mishkan. The girls were divided into groups and each one made a different keili and wrote a report detailing how it was built and what it was used for. The girls were excited about their masterpieces and were so proud that they brought their learning to life!
Yeshiva Har Torah Selected to Participate in First IDEAS Cohort
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s the Patriots and Rams huddled in their locker rooms on Super Bowl Sunday, teams of a different kind huddled in a conference center in Dallas, Texas, strategizing about their schools’ futures and the continuation of excellent, affordable Jewish education. Representatives from Yeshiva Har Torah were privileged to be among them. These teams – each comprised of five professional and/or lay leaders – hailed from ten day schools from around the country. Together, they made up the inaugural cohort of the Institute for Day School Excellence and Sustainability program (“IDEAS”). IDEAS is an 18-month program designed to address every aspect of school sustainability, and thereby help schools move toward long-term
excellence and stability. YHT, like the other nine participating schools, was selected after an intensive application process among Jewish schools from all over the United States and across Jewish denominations. The school’s IDEAS team is comprised of Head of School, Rabbi Gary Menchel; Assistant Executive Director, Ephi Strazynski; Director of Admissions and Student Services, Sara Pollak; and two lay leaders representing the school’s Board of Directors. The YHT team spent three days together in Dallas focused on various aspects of marketing, recruitment, and enrollment. Future conferences, webinars, and other such training sessions will focus on financial resource development, board development, strategic planning, and other factors critical to building a school’s
capacity to continue to educate and inspire the next generation of Jewish leaders. At the close of the conference, during a “shout out” session designed to thank those from whom we learned, YHT was commended for its outstanding spirit (there might have been a picture of the team taken on the first night in head-to-toe YHT swag). Throughout the conference, YHT was also noted for its thriving enrollment. Reflecting on the conference, Rabbi Gary Menchel said, “We feel privileged to have been selected to join this initiative and have already benefitted from our participation. The conference addressed very practical and relevant areas, which will undoubtedly make us an even better school. Special thanks to our
dedicated team for representing our school.” The premise of IDEAS is that, in order for day schools to be successful, their leadership cannot function in a siloed environment. Rather, a school’s full entire administration and board must feel responsible for the totality of a school’s growth and development, and recognize how their particular roles and job functions relate to a greater whole. That is why the full IDEAS team, and not just the Director of Admissions, took a deep dive into recruitment and enrollment, and articulated short, medium, and long-term goals for the coming years. Conference participants will collectively do the same with others aspects of the school’s operations in the months ahead.