New Students, New Semester 30 Shvat, 5774
This Week at CJHS New Students Scavenger Hunt Talmud Final With a Twist Regional Bridge Building Competition Basketball Wins Curriculum and Beyond Students in the News A Taste of Torah Alumni Trivia
Save the Date
January 31, 2014
CJHS Welcomes Three New Students If we can just keep everyone in school without freezing their toes off, CJHS would be delighted to welcome our three new underclassmen! Freshman Nina Levine from Castle Rock, Colorado, says all this snow is nothing; she comes to us from Castle Rock High School, and is boarding with fellowfreshman Emma Siegel's family in Chicago. Sophomore Ari Rosenthal of Skokie has just transferred over from Ida Crown Academy, and fellow new sophomore Eliana Kharasch of Bannockburn previously attended Deerfield High School. Bruchim ha-ba'im, Tigers! Welcome to our warm community!
Middle Schoolers Come for Scavenger Hunt
Sunday, Feb. 9 Wednesday, Feb. 12 ISACS Team Visit Sunday, Feb. 9 ACT Monday, Feb. 17 No School: President's Day Tuesday, Feb. 25 Curriculum and Beyond
P.O. Corner The P.O. is pleased to continue the gift card "Gelt" program. This program is designed to help families earn money toward their children's junior year Panim program and/or the Senior Israel Experience. Faculty and staff can also buy Gelt to support programs provided for the school by the P.O. By buying things you ordinarily purchase anyway, you can earn money which will be credited to your family or class for designated school trips. Contact Sheri Sandrof at ssandrof@cjhs.org or call her at 847.324.3723.
Community News and Events Solomon Schechter Day School Presents author Lisa Frydman Barr
Join us at Solomon Schechter Day School on Thursday, February 13, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. for a very special
This past Sunday, the halls and classrooms at Chicagoland Jewish High School were bursting with energy as prospective and current students competed to decipher clues directing them to specific locations within the building and to completing tasks assigned at each destination. 21 current CJHS students welcomed 40 students from 7th and 8th grades to participate in the Second Annual CJHS Scavenger Hunt/Pizza Party. Students were divided into teams and began the afternoon in the gym with ice breakers and an obstacle course. Once the obstacle course was successfully completed, each team was given its first of four clues. At every location, the team was faced with a challenge that had to be overcome before the next clue was handed out. Challenges included creating a CJHS cheer complete with costumes and props, making eco friendly mezuzot to be donated to Gidwitz, answering trivia questions, and wrapping team members up in toilet paper and posing for pictures in a pyramid. Their reward was pizza and ice cream sundaes in the dining hall. CJHS t-shirts were also distributed to the participants. The afternoon presented a wonderful and fun opportunity for prospective students to learn more about our school and building and, most importantly, to get to know other future and current members of the CJHS community.
evening (free) with international journalist Lisa Frydman Barr, author of the award-winning historical fiction novel Fugitive Colors. Fugitive Colors is a suspenseful take of an artist's revenge during WWII. Julian Klein, a young American Jewish artist, leaves behind his religious upbringing for the artistic freedom of Paris in the 1930's, only to find himself trapped inside a world in which a paintbrush is far more lethal than a gun. With the release of the movie "The Monument Men" staring George Clooney, the book is very timely. Lisa, who lives in Highland Park, has been a journalist for 20 years, served as an editor for the Jerusalem Post, and as managing editor of Moment Magazine and Today's Chicago Woman. If you have any questions about this event, please contact Lisa Levitas lisateck@yahoo.com.
Sponsor Breakfast
This event could not have taken place without the hard work and support of our Parent Ambassadors who not only helped to plan the afternoon, but showed up to implement it, as well. The energy and dedication of the current CJHS students who participated helped to make every guest feel welcome and included.
Talmud Finals With a Twist
What's better than a birthday celebration with friends? Celebrate your student's birthday or other milestone with a special breakfast at CJHS.
For a donation of $180 (10x chai), bagels, cream cheese, and orange juice will be served to everyone. Announcements will be made in Tefillah and in the dining hall, and the occasion will also be listed in our weekly E-News and on the school announcement board. If you have any questions, please call 847.324.3713 or email idrazin@cjhs.org. Order forms are available online here.
Quick Links
Rabbi Indiana Jones and the Search For Koved Rosh
For Rabbi Silver's tenth grade Talmud final, students chose a sugya (section) that they learned over the first semester, from the fifth chapter of Massechet Brachot. They dramatized it, using key terms from the Talmud in the script. As with all classes at CJHS, students first understood the text on its own terms and then analyzed the text for how it applies to their own prayer lives. Enjoy one example from the class, Rabbi Indiana Jones and the Search for Koved Rosh, here!
Regional Bridge Building Competition
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Airplane schedules, blowing snow, and bitter cold threw quite a wrench into CJHS' plans to attend the annual bridge-building competition at Illinois Institute of Technology this year! Our senior champions, Ada Moses, Baye Miller, Alena Burda, Marci Steinberg, and Avery Wein delivered a bridge that supported a mighty 205 times its own weight before the outer trusses buckled sideways under shear and one of the center support beams broke. Unfortunately, their original design was also 7 grams over the official limit, so we were beat out at #35 by Fenwick High School, whose efficiency was also under 300, but whose bridge was fully half the weight of ours. Junior champions Hannah Lynch and Morgan Michelson-Kelly replicated their prize-winning bridge from the school contest, tying Notre Dame College Prep at #32, with a bridge supporting a full 411 times its own weight. Hannah and Morgan surpassed the second-place record set by Joanna Tunik, Aaron Freeman, Adam Miller, and Lauren Steinberg in 2012. Well done, ladies!
Boys Basketball Does It Again!
The boys varsity basketball team returned from the senior Israel trip to thump our longtime rivals at the Skokie Yeshiva 6237. Our victorious Tigers came home to CJHS to defeat Northtown 76-52, and take on Chicago Hope Academy last night. Make sure to shovel out Saturday night to cheer on the Tigers for the big game against Ida Crown! The sophomores, fresh from their victory against Northtown and Chicago Hope, will play at 8:00 p.m., followed by the varsity team at 9:30 p.m. And if the snow is too much for you, come out Sunday to see our Ten-Pin Tigers bowling team take on the Ida Crown bowlers on Sunday at Classic Bowl. The girls varsity and JV basketball teams lost a hard-fought match Wednesday at Cristo Rey and another last night on Senior Night against Ellison. Kol hakavod to seniors Alana Spellman, Charlotte Kamin, and Madison Reisler, who have been the bastions of our Lady Tigers for four years! On Monday, the Lady Tigers begin the Chicago Prep Conference Tournament with a rematch against Ellison at 4:30 p.m. at Christ the King, 5088 Jackson, in Chicago.
Attention, Prospective Families: Curriculum and Beyond On February 25, prospective parents and students will be treated to an evening devoted to discovering more about what makes Chicagoland Jewish High School so special both in and out of the classrooms. Families will be introduced to the more than 30 extracurricular opportunities that CJHS offers its students. Our athletics, clubs and activities, fine arts curriculum, and tikkun olam programs will be highlighted. Parents and student will experience the courses in both the general and Jewish studies programs. These hands on lessons will expose prospective families to the dynamic and meaningful learning opportunities that occur every day at CJHS. Teachers will be available to give curriculum overviews and to answer any questions you have. To learn more about this important upcoming event for prospective families, please contact the Director of Admissions, Lily Zoberman, at lzoberman@cjhs.org, 847.324.3706, or the Assistant Director of Admissions, Gita Karasov, at gkarasov@cjhs.org or at 847.324.3711.
Alumni Trivia Which of our recent graduates spent her senior internship at a legal firm and is now doing undergraduate law research with a professor at the University of Michigan?
Students in the News Senior Shira Harris is all over the social media network with her latest article for the Times of Israel, Wrapped Up In Tradition. Shira's article, which deals with the experience and sociology of being "that girl with the tefillin" has generated a very positive buzz and gives quite a shoutout her experience at CJHS. That's our Shira!
P.O. Corner - Save the Date
"The Gospel According to Griffith and Torah Taught by Schorsch: An Interfaith Conversation" Presented by Rebecca Schorsch, PhD and Dale Griffith, M.Div. Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 7:00 p.m. at CJHS Back by popular demand, a debate, discussion and dialogue between two esteemed members of our faculty. Thoughts, comments, questions? Drop us an email at po@cjhs.org.
A Taste of Torah: T'rumah
Why do we recite "zecher litziat mitzrayim" in the Kiddush for Shabbat? After all, isn't Shabbat about the crowning of creation, of God resting after working to construct the world and all that fills it? In order to address this question it helps first to zoom in on the essential purposes of the Exodus. Dr. Ben Sommer of JTS and Northwestern University suggested once that the entire narrative of the Exodus can be summed up in four words, those that Moses says on behalf of God to Pharaoh - Shlach et ami v'yavduni. "Send forth my people, so that they can serve me." Significant in this statement is that it is mission-driven. Send forth my people, why? So that they can serve me. We have "freedom from" servitude, in order so that we may have "freedom to" serve God. There is freedom from Egypt -- for a purpose. It is this "freedom to" approach that brings us to our parasha this week, Parashat T'rumah, where we have details upon details about the mishkan, the tabernacle. Details about sockets, about weavings, about the gold-plated menorah. Why does the topic of the mishkan occupy more space in the Torah than any other single topic? Because this was how Biblical Jews served God.
During the 21st century, this is still applicable, perhaps more now than ever. Twenty-first century America represents more "freedom from" than any other time than in the history of the world. It is that much more of a mandate now to live up to our opportunities and responsibilities of living a "freedom to" life - a life where we place studying Torah at the center of our community, where we cultivate lives of chesed within the Jewish and wider human community, where we perform mitzvot throughout the course of our days. It is my blessing and wish for the CJHS community to live up to our lives as "freedom to" Jews, with all of the opportunities we have to make Judaism a lived orientation of how we navigate the world. And in turn, we will provide a seat for God to dwell among us.
--Rav Beit Sefer Zach Silver
Alumni Trivia Ilana Lieberman ('12) is double majoring in sociology and psychology at the University of Michigan. She is looking forward to interning in Washington D.C. over the summer. Ilana reports, "On campus, I am very involved with legal research for one of the professors at the Law School. I regularly volunteer at SafeHouse center, which is a shelter for survivors of domestic violence; I provide telephone-based crisis intervention on their 24/7 hotline. I am also co-chairing Breaking Barriers, a club through Hillel that is dedicated to breaking the "barriers" between the Hillel community and other ethnic and religious groups on campus. We host dinner events with other ethnic and religious clubs." Good for you, Ilana!
Shabbat Shalom Candlelighting this week will be at 4:44 p.m. Shabbat shalom!