JSL Championship Recap

Last week, the JSL 2023 Winter season by FM Home Loans concluded with some incredible championship hockey games, including one for the ages!

2nd/3rd: The #6 seeded MoldPro faced off against the #2 seeded JNT in what was possibly the greatest game in JSL history. JNT repeatedly took the lead, but MoldPro kept up the fight and continued to tie it up. With just three minutes left on the clock and JNT leading 3-2, Shmuel Kunstler of MoldPro, who had been exceptional all season, tied the game up! With less than a minute remaining, JNT fired some incredible shots on net, but Tani Polansky heroically stopped them from finding the back of the net, sending the game into overtime. The game eventually went into an epic seven-round shootout, with neither team able to clinch the win until the seventh round, when JNT scored and Shlomo

Greenspan made an incredible save to secure the championship victory for JNT!

4th/5th: Town Appliance, who was undefeated in the regular season, held the lead the entire game. They were leading 6-4 with just over a minute remaining in the game when 925 Sterling scored to cut the deficit to one. But team MVP Benji Somerstien sealed the deal for

Town Appliance by scoring an empty netter with just 58 seconds left on the clock. Zac Grauman was awarded the MVP for his impressive performance as a goalie & Coach Menachem Somerstein received his 2nd JSL Championship Trophy!

In the 6th-8th place game, BayRock Insurance put on an all-around incredible performance, jumping out to an early

3-0 lead and never looking back. They kept the offensive powerhouse JNT team at bay with an exceptional performance from Raphael “The Wall” Klein. Cheskel Salomon, the season’s leading goal scorer, managed to get a goal late in the third period, but it wasn’t enough. Coach Yitzi Kohn took home his third JSL Championship Trophy!

SKA/Lev Chana Makkot Program

SKA ninth graders and Lev Chana pre-schoolers came together for the SKA/Lev Chana Makkot Program, one of the most popular student activities of the year! The SKA auditorium was filled with the happy voices of teens and tots on Monday, March 27, as the two groups sat on the floor in animated discussion.

The SKA freshmen had prepared containers filled with engaging makkot rep -

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resentations and an illustrated booklet which they used to explain the Ten Makkot which would be talked about at the Seder. The pre-schoolers listened with eager anticipation as the SKA students explained each plague and the sequence of the Seder, using adorable props to demonstrate.

It was hard to tell which group was more delighted with the program!

HAFTR High School Robotics Team Takes First Place in CIJE Tournament

HAFTR High School and Middle School robotics teams headed to the Fort Washington Armory on Tuesday, March 28, to compete in a CIJE (Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education) Robotics Tournament. Each team came prepared with a unique robot that they had designed, built, and coded prior to the competition. At the tournament, they used their robots to battle it out with yeshivot from across the country.

HAFTR High School won first place and third place in the competition! The teams’ creativity, innovation, and teamwork in preparation for the event resulted in remarkable success.

HAFTR has worked hard to develop their cutting-edge STEM program across all grade levels and divisions. Students first begin engaging in STEM-related activities in the Early Childhood program and Lower School. By Middle School, students are gaining expertise with coding in multiple languages across multiple platforms and are actively engaged in using their knowledge to solve practical problems. HAFTR students not only learn STEM skills, but they practice applying them to real world situations. For this year’s Middle School STEM summit, students used their critical thinking, teamwork, coding, and design skills to create their own escape rooms.

The HAFTR High School Robotics Teams’ success in the recent CIJE Tournament is a testament to the effectiveness of HAFTR’s approach to STEM and fostering STEM from such a young age. It is beautiful to see how students’ STEMS skills successfully grow from simple activities in Early Childhood to winning National STEM competitions in High School.