Ilana Ruskay-Kidd

About Ilana Ruskay-Kidd

Ilana has been serving the Jewish educational community in New York City in multiple capacities for the past twelve years. Most recently, she served as the Director of The Saul and Carole Zabar Nursery School at the JCC in Manhattan. Prior to being named to this position in 2006, she worked at the JCC as Director of Young Families and then as Senior Director of Family Life, supervising programs serving families and children from birth to eighteen years old. Ilana began her teaching career at the Central Park East school in Harlem and went on to become a founding teacher at the Ella Baker School, an alternative public school in Manhattan. She then worked as an Early Childhood Curriculum Consultant for the Children's Aid Society where she developed curricula with directors and teachers in day care, Head Start and private nursery school programs throughout the city.

Ilana received her B.A. from Harvard College and a Master's Degree in Education from Bank Street College. She was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and now lives there with her husband and three children.

October 31, 2014

Gratitude

On Wednesday night I was on the phone with my 92 year-old grandmother and she was complimenting me on my last newsletter (I have been sending her my Shabbat newsletters since my time at the JCC!). I interrupted her gushing and shared that I wasn’t quite sure what to write this week. She immediately responded, […]

October 24, 2014

The Tower Of Babel

It was a long but wonderful week at Shefa! For some of our students, it felt like they needed to re-acclimate and prepare themselves for the intensity of a full week after all of the interruptions of our calendar. But with the high holidays behind us, it was good to feel like we could get […]

October 3, 2014

The World Was Created For My Sake… I Am But Dust And Ashes

Each year, as we approach Yom Kippur, we try to prepare and find ways to make new and relevant connections to this ancient holiday. This week, as I studied, I was struck by a teaching of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who argues that the essential task of Yom Kippur is to develop a sense of […]

September 19, 2014

Building A Strong Foundation While Raising The Bar

As things have settled down, I had the privilege to spend some more time in classrooms, observing reading groups, tfillah, social studies and Judaic studies. As I watched your children working on Rosh Hashanah projects while simultaneously working on their spelling, handwriting, punctuation and organizing their ideas, I couldn’t help but smile. This integration of […]

September 12, 2014

Bikkurim: First Fruits

It has been a great gift to experience a full week with your children. We are all beginning to feel the rhythm of our days and of our week and we look forward to next week when we will have our full program including the Chug (“club activity”) period. Your children have begun to delve […]

May 31, 2013

Saying Goodbye

During my first year as director, we had a staff meeting where an outside consultant brought a deck of cards, each with an inspirational message or intention. I selected a card with a simple message: “Expect the Best.” This card has remained on my office bulletin board for seven years, providing me with a focus, […]

May 24, 2013

Leaning In

This week the JCC Nursery School book club read excerpts from Sheryl Sandberg’s much discussed book Lean In. Sandberg, who is COO of Facebook, argues that women unintentionally hold themselves back in their careers and encourages women to “sit at the table,” seek challenges, take risks, and pursue their goals. Sandberg’s book has elicited a […]

May 17, 2013

First Fruits

It has been a choppy week but I hope that some of you had the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful weather while we were off. I appreciated the sunshine, a picnic in the park with friends and family, and saying Kaddish at synagogue, one of three times a year when we join as a community […]

May 10, 2013

Blessing Our Children

Have you ever had a week where it feels like you barely skid into the finish line? This was that sort of week for me. A week packed with work, with family, with laundry, with meetings, and with too much rain! But as I begin to write this newsletter on Thursday night I begin to […]

May 3, 2013

Preparing For Endings

Earlier this week, a parent remarked, “this is your last kesher meeting.” I immediately felt my stomach turn and throat clench as I realized that we were moving into that season of “lasts.” Inevitably, as something comes to an end we begin to count down — the last Shabbat celebration, a last PA meeting, a […]