I imagine myself as Avraham, up early one morning, before the sun has risen from the horizon. I quietly touch my son, my beloved, Isaac, and tell him he must wake. We get ready to go in silence, he in half-sleep, half-haze, me in terror, following instructions to take my son to the land of […]

This Rosh Hashanah I have asked myself the question: What do our children know about Rosh Hashanah that can help to make our celebration more meaningful or relevant? This question, focusing on new beginnings, seems especially appropriate given the alignment of our new school year and the New Year in the Jewish calendar. This convergence of beginnings […]

This week we have begun to feel the vibrant pulse of our school emerge. Almost all of our students now have a full day of school and I promise, the rest of you will soon! When walking through the classrooms and Common Space it feels both so new and also so familiar. Children are connecting to one another, to […]

I fumbled through the week wondering, what could I possibly say on the last day, the last newsletter? Do I have any new wisdom on endings? Can I find language to capture all of the richness of the year? As I look at photos and work of the children from September and try to wrap […]

Is anyone feeling the end coming close? I know that I start suddenly to feel a sense of restlessness just when I need to face an end. Somehow it is easier to ignore the impending ending by focusing on summer, focusing on the rain, focusing on the busy-ness rather than mourning the end. What would […]

What a week! We began this week with the incredible JCC benefit – with a room of over 300 people together celebrating all that we do here at the JCC. We then had Kesher on Tuesday evening where we met and discussed the way that our Jewish tradition thinks about transitions and liminal moments. Wednesday […]

Welcome back! It was so wonderful to see such happy children (and parents!) returning to school these last two days. Everyone seems to have grown three inches over these past two weeks and seem ready to be back (though some do feel a bit of trepidation after such a long break – which is totally normal!). This […]

What a beautiful and busy few weeks we have had here at the Nursery School. When you walk onto the second floor you can immediately feel that Passover is near. You can experience the delicious smells of Passover food wafting through the common space, the tastes of matzah pizza and macaroons, and the sounds of children singing […]

As most of you know, the JCC Nursery School has been a part of JECEI, the Jewish Early Childhood Education Initiative for the past 5 years.  We learned this past week that JECEI is unable to continue their work with new schools due to lack of funding nationally and in local communities and therefore will need to phase […]

Next Shabbat my eldest daughter, Gabriella is becoming a bat mitzvah. Even as I write this sentence I cannot quite believe that it is my daughter I am writing about.  The image that comes to mind when I think of parents who have a child becoming a bar/bat mitzvah is the image of parents who […]