When my eldest daughter was a baby, whenever she would get inexplicably fussy we would say, “Teething! She is probably getting a new tooth.” For months her toothless smile remained and then one day we felt her sharp tooth on the tip of our finger. With the first tooth’s arrival came a well of emotions: […]

Hope you all had a good week. The school is abuzz with menorah making, storytelling and so much more. I know that the pace of this city, this JCC, and my own personal life makes me eagerly await the arrival of this shabbat. “Okay kids,” I said to my children last night over dinner, “I […]

While it may seem like we have just finished celebrating Thanksgiving, Chanukah is but a week away! Several parents and alumni have asked me to send a list of some recommended ways to celebrate Chanukah and to think about the season in some way besides for drowning our children in useless gifts. Particularly this year […]

Thanksgiving is among my favorite holidays – the simplicity of its message is clearly stated in its name. Gratitude is an element in many of our Jewish and secular celebrations but in none of them is the simple message of gratitude quite so distilled as it is for Thanksgiving. This year, having just experienced Hurricane […]

As holidays approach we are often flooded by memories of prior celebrations. I remember the times when we used to travel to my grandparents’ home, I remember the year of the snow storm, I remember the year we got caught in hours of traffic heading on the way to Lido beach, and I remember the […]

It has been a busy week here at the JCC. As I watched our elevator vestibule and classrooms burst with clothing for our Baby Buggy drive, our lobby fill with school supplies to be donated to a community in need, and our common space filled with an alumni parent and professional photographer, Diana Berrent, taking […]

While many of you were together in classrooms with our amazing teachers for our fall Parent Nights, a terrible tragedy occurred just two blocks away. It is hard for any of us to wrap our minds around this tragedy or find our footing in a world that can feel so unsafe. This morning, around tables […]

It was so good to finally have a full week of school! It is amazing what can get accomplished in 5 straight days – providing children, parents and staff the opportunity to taste the rhythm of a routine. We are definitely off to a great start! Wednesday night I returned home from a late meeting […]

Last Monday, as I went off to synagogue for Shmini Atzeret (one of the least known of the Jewish holidays), I told my son that I was eager to get to synagogue because it was one of four times a year when we say “yizkor,” the service of memory for those who have died. “What […]