PHOTO: NOACH KLEIN
PITTSBURGH, PA: Pittsburgh NCSY’s new chapter board, from left to right: Tyler Sikov, MD Luzer, Yosef Cohen Melamed, Tovia Jacobs, Josh Hertzberg, Ben Ungar, Yael Itskowitz, Polina Neft, Yael Perlman, Shira Itskowitz, Sigalle Bahary and Liel Piniezik.
TORONTO NCSY STARTS CLUBS IN PRIVATE SCHOOL Toronto NCSY opened its first JSU club at Bishop Strachan School (BSS). BSS is a private Anglican school where approximately 40 percent of the student population is Jewish. This is the first time that Toronto NCSY has been able to offer Jewish girls who attend BSS a taste of Yiddishkeit in their lives. Building on the success of BSS, Toronto NCSY is now starting a second JSU in Bishop Strachan’s brother school, Upper Canada College, one of the top private schools in the country. This is another exciting opportunity, given that UCC’s student body is 35 percent Jewish and has never had a Jewish club at their school.
TORONTO JSU HOSTS EDUCATION ASSEMBLY The JSU at Forest Hill Collegiate hosted a Holocaust education assembly for the entire student body of 900 teens. The students heard from Mrs. Lea Hochman, a Holocaust survivor, and many different teens from the JSU club. It was an incredibly moving and powerful event.
CENTRAL EAST Rabbi Tzali Freedman, Regional Director 888.471.4514 // ncsyce@ncsy.org centraleast.ncsy.org
Cleveland, OH Rabbi Arieh Friedner - rabbiarieh@ncsy.org
Rabbi Dovid Lichtig - lichtigd@ncsy.org
DETROIT NCSY WINS CHAPTER OF THE YEAR AGAIN!
This summer, 35 teens had their best summer ever on NCSY Summer in the U.S. and Israel. Upon their return, Cleveland NCSY hosted a CLE-TLV BBQ to say “see you later” to the more than 20 teens who departed to Israel for yeshivot, seminaries, colleges and other gap year programs.
For the second time in three years, Detroit NCSY brought home the Central East NCSY Chapter of the Year award. This award is presented to the chapter that exhibits the most success and growth during the year and creates innovative new programming. After winning in 2013, Detroit NCSY set its goals even higher. 2015 brought even more success: brandnew JSU clubs were formed, chesed initiatives were launched and learning programs were reinvented. Along with a revitalized Junior NCSY, everything came together for a year of fantastic growth in numbers and quality programming, resulting in the coveted award!
NEW PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Rabbi Samuel and Gila Ross - samuelross@ncsy.ca
WESTERN CANADA SPRING REGIONAL
Columbus, OH
Western Canada’s Spring Regional was a spectacular success with a record 55 attendees from Vancouver! It was a wonderful Shabbat weekend on Mt. Baker, Washington. The activities were epic, the atmosphere was electric, the weather was sunny and the food was delicious! Guest speaker Rabbi Don Pacht, principal of Vancouver Hebrew Academy, engaged the crowd with a series of magic tricks. Both Rabbi Pacht and Rabbi Glenn Black, CEO of NCSY Canada, delivered powerful messages about living a meaningful life and taking risks. The weekend closed with an awards banquet where teens were recognized for their contributions to NCSY over the past year.
Detroit, MI
WELCOME BACK AND SEE YOU LATER TO TEENS IN ISRAEL
Cleveland NCSY is tremendously exited to welcome superstars Rabbi Menachem Tenenbaum (Rabbi T) and his wife Elana to its team. Rabbi T will be the new Program Director, a position focused on managing the day to day operations of the vast program schedule of NCSY in Cleveland, spanning over a dozen schools and nearly 1,000 Jewish teens.
Vancouver, British Columbia
The Frankiels’ involvement was during a period of remarkable growth for the Columbus chapter and they will be deeply missed. Rabbi Dovid Kimche of London, England, assumed the position of regional director this August.
Rabbi Dovid & Mrs. Yona Kimche - kimched@ncsy.org
COLUMBUS & NEW ALBANY ROCK REGIONAL SHABBATON This past May, Columbus NCSY dominated their regional convention held at the Crowne Plaza in Dublin, Ohio. With nearly 60 attendees, this regional marked the highest number of Columbus participants at a regional convention in Columbus NCSY history! Among the attendees were 14 TJJers, a record representation for the Chapter, with half of them part of the newly-formed New Albany JSU club.
CHANGE OF GUARD Columbus NCSY bid a tearful goodbye to Rabbi Yaakov and Shira Frankiel at the Spring Regional Convention.
DETROIT NCSY GOES INTERNATIONAL Windsor, Ontario, is just 15 miles away from the heart of Detroit’s Jewish community, but until recently there was virtually no Jewish teen engagement in the area. Detroit NCSY changed this by expanding its programming across the Canadian border. The Detroit chapter board members created a Windsor miniShabbaton experience for teens to recruit for future events. The numbers speak to the initiative’s success: nine public school teens from Windsor attended Spring Regional Convention 2015!
Pittsburgh, PA Rabbi Ari Goldberg - goldberga@ncsy.org
PITTSBURGH SHAVUATON Fifty teens participated in the Shavuot Shabbaton weekend, which included a teen minyan, lunch, Shavuot dinner, all-night learning, a Jr. NCSY learning program, awesome NCSY advisors and much more. The teens enjoyed the program, especially hanging ROSH HASHANAH 2015
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