BH. THURS Cheshvan
ב“ה
9, 5780 / Nov 7, 2019
Community Newsletter of the Maimonides Hebrew Day School of the Capital District Candle-Lighting: 404 Partridge Street Albany NY 12208 (518) 453-9363/3434 www.maimonidesschool.org 4:22 Shabbat Ends: produced by Rabbi Mendel Rubin & students in the TNT (Torah ‘n Technology) Program 5:23 Maimonides is accredited by the NYS Board of Regents & is a beneficiary of UJF-NENY
RAVNOY BAR-MITZVAH IN L.A. Mazal Tov to MHDS alumna Miriam (Stempel Ravnoy) and her husband Yitzchak Frimerman on the upcoming Bar-Mitzvah of her son Levi Yitzchak Ravnoy in Los Angeles next week. We wish her and the whole Stempel family (formerly of Albany) much Nachas!
maimonidesschool@gmail.com
MAIMONIDES 404 Partridge Street Albany NY 12208
IRVING ISENBERG, HALF-MAST Mr. Isenberg was the former longtime Chief and President of the Getzville Fire Dept near Buffalo who went down to Ground Zero to serve in the days after 9/11. He died this week because of illness resulting from his work at the fallen towers. Govenor Cuomo asked that flags be lowered to half-mast in his memory. Feivel Chandler, who works for State Fire, alerted us to this special honor and recognition.
MAZAL TOV SIMMY & CHAYA on the birth of a baby boy on Tuesday, wishing them much Nachas and happiness! Mazal Tov to the baby’s older brothers at Maimonides and the whole Rubin family.
RABBIS FELDMAN & RUBIN AT ZAYIN (7th of) CHESHVAN PROGRAM The program began about the significance of the day (when the last Jew arrived home after the Sukkot pilgrimage and Israel begins to pray for rain), and remembering Rabbi Meir Shapiro the founder of Daf Yomi and the renown Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin in pre-war Poland and teacher of Rabbi Rubin’s teacher Rabbi Hirschprung from Montreal. Rabbi Feldman (whose greatgrandfather attended that Yeshiva) told a story of Rabbi Shapiro at a newspaper stand where the proprietor tried to sell him “Der Haynt” or “Der Moment” (secular Yiddish newspapers) but Rabbi Shapiro insisted on “Der Yid” (a religious Yiddish newspaper) because “Today (der Haynt) and this moment (der Moment) are fleeting, but the Jew (der Yid) is eternal!” Then the two Rabbis discussed impressions & experiences of the visiting (incognito) reporter (who visited here on Shabbos Selichos) and the recent detailed and picture-rich 20+ page feature story on Albany’s Jewish community in a current Yiddish glossy magazine (ironically also called “Der Moment” though this one is religious), while Shmuly G. flipped the pages of it in e-book form on the screen. Some of the local Jewish history in the article (about R’ Zalman Levine and Rabbi Kornmehl) sparked ideas for another lesson another time. They also discussed the styles of Yiddish and Ladino, and the value of learning about how other Jews live.
This MC Newsletter is dedicated in honor of the marriage of
Sara & Yossi Rapoport by her parents Ruvain & Shayna Kudan
AFTER 20 YEARS That’s the title of an O’ Henry short story, but this has a much happier outcome… At her Sheva Brachos celebration this week at Shabbos House, MHDS alumnus Sara (Kudan) Rapoport recalled Morah Devorah Leah’s graduation speech as a HS senior (it was a simple enough idea for 9-year old Sara to understand, but rich enough to resonate and stick with her all these years) speaking of our school as the traveler speaks gratefully of the tree in the oasis in Talmud tractate Taanit 5b, blessing her that all her plantings be the same as her. And Sara’s hopes that as she builds her new family with Yossi, their (next generation) plantings continue the Maimonides values and style.
NEW OVENS FOR PIZZA NIGHT HS Girls are excited to have two new wall ovens to work with at Nathan’s Kitchen in time for Pizza Night this week. Pre-orders also help them be more efficient, email your order to: bnoschayaprograms@gmail.com. It opens at 7:15pm this Sat Night. Pizza $9, Pizza with toppings $10, Sushi $7 per roll, Fries $2, Garlic Knots are 50 cents. Eat-in/Take-out.
TRAFFIC TROUBLE Short stops, slips and falls, not getting out of the way fast enough, not giving warning… these are traffic accident issues our 6/7 boys are learning now in Talmud Bava Kama 31a. There are three cases: “The Two Potters”, “The Beam and the Jug” and “Pottery and Glass” and they did a chart (as well as a set of worksheets) to organize how these cases are different and what they have in common. Test next week!
THE TRAVELERS PRAYER Lech Lecha is the story of Avraham & Sarah’s journey, so Kindergarteners learned about Tefilas HaDerech, the travelers prayer and pasted it on decorated cars they made. (Does anyone remember the laminated Tefilas HaDerech our TNT students designed for CBAJ many years ago?)
AND THE ANSWER IS... Glasses cleaner spray! This might have been the most surprising and magnificent of closeup images of random household objects that Ms. Brown’s middle school students put under a microscope. The white or clear spots, large and small, are where the spray landed, the ornate black “lace” are the edges of each bubble! It is totally not what they expected!
FUN STORY WITH BALLOONS It’s always a lot of fun when Daniel Resnick comes into school to do a show for his kids’ birthdays. He dressed as a clown and told a twist on the old fable of bringing all the animals into the house to better appreciate and be grateful for what you already have. He made a balloon animal for each of the students and told the story using them and their balloon animals. Thanks for coming in!
MAKE YOUR OWN TEST
SOUP OF THE WEEK IS BACK
It may sound easy at first, but it is actually quite a challenge to write a good test that is both fair and challenging. Rabbi Caras asked his 4th grade Yahadus students to each write up a test comprised of true/false, multiplechoice and open-ended questions and then swap with a friend to take the test their fellow student wrote. This is yet another way to review the material before the first of 3 Yahadus tests in the coming months.
The weather turned colder and Mrs. Wildman is once again volunteering to coordinate the soup-of-the-week which our kids very much enjoy. Parents: please pick a date to sign up to prepare, cook and cleanup (all in “Nathan’s Kitchen” at school) a delicious big pot of soup for all our students (and teachers, too) to enjoy!
SOUTHWESTERN BROCHURES Ms. Hammond is very proud of the amazing work 4th graders did on their travel info brochures of South-Western states. They did good research and nice writing. And travel ties into Parsha Lech Lecha!
APPROACHING THE SEA Rabbi Mathless’ Chumash class now learning the last verses before the Splitting of the Sea, drama building with Egyptians in hot pursuit!
BRING A COAT EVERY DAY We like to take children outdoors during recess for fresh air, sports and activities, so its important that they come to school every day with a coat on!
MORE CANS!
Nearly all of the tuna cans are in, we’re still collecting more white 15.5 cans and we’ve Kindergarten kids been working on our learned about the can structure in swinging dot on preparation for the LIKE THE STARS the 3-headed KIDS CAN BUILD Hebrew letter that In this week’s Parsha, event on November changes it from a Hashem promised 8th at Crossgates Mall to benefit the Shalom Shin to a Sin letter Avraham that his Kosher Food Pantry. Save the date, 4pm (after or vice versa. They have been doing a lot of descendants will be like school dismissal) at the mall. Please try to practice and exercises with Morah Raizel to be the stars of heaven, so come to support our kids, our school, all the great at telling the difference between similar Morah Dini’s Kindergarteners dressed up as participating schools, and the Food Pantry! looking or sounding Hebrew letters. and are indeed the stars promised to Avraham!
IT CAN GO EITHER WAY
ELECTRON CONFIGURATIONS High School Chemistry class is now learning this complex description of the location of electrons within the atom which involves 3 principles and sophisticated notations but this formula is very important as it plays a large role in determining the chemistry of an atom.
COMPOST GOES CORPORATE! Well, not exactly. But this coming week our middle school students will be presenting about our compost project at school to a prominent local engineering firm interested in environmental issues. Look for it in next weeks MC Newsletter.
LECH LECHA JUST IN TIME! Morah DL’s Kitah Gimel is so excited to finish Parsha Lech Lecha (their third Torah Parsha) just in time to read Lecha Lecha in the Torah!
RACHEL IMENU YARTZEIT The 11th of Cheshvan is the yartzeit of Rachel our Matriarch, and will be this Shabbos. Top: Kindergarteners made Kever Rochel (Rachel’s Tomb) projects and were very eager to get this picture in the newsletter! Above: For Esther’s birthday she brought in canvases to her 4th grade classroom to paint Kever Rochel.
SPANISH QUIZ ON ADJECTIVES HS Girls Spanish class learned words for good, bad, interesting, funny, big & small, messy, neat, & all kinds of descriptive words like that.
TRAGIC COMEDY PLAY Ms. Barenboim’s HS Girls English class are reading “Waiting for Godot” a play by Samuel Beckett. A lot of it is quite funny or comes off that way, so there’s a lot of laughing in class.
FINDING CHUMASH ON SLIDES We love when our student see their learning in the world around them! That’s the M.I.C. (Maimonides Integrated Connections) symbol at work! These 4th graders learned about the speckled, spotted & striped sheep in the Lavan and Yaakov story in their Chumash class and then realized that the 3 slides in the park down the street also has lines etched in on one slide and spots on another!
SPECIAL GUEST SEFORIM SWAP Mr. Aharon Drazin is a Montreal businessman whose father was a close friend and supporter of Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung (they even both died on the same date!) He brought Rabbi Rubin a Sefer he wrote (including things from and about Rabbi Hirschprung) and Rabbi Rubin gave him his Marbeh L’Saper Haggadah Sefer in exchange!
3D NAVI* PROJECTS (* that rhymes!) 5th grade worked in pairs to create 3D projects about the Navi (Prophets) stories they are learning in the Book of Judges.
LETTERS HOME
In a social-studies class about immigrants, Ms. DOMINANT/RECESSIVE GENES Ramsay asked her 6/7 grade science learned about genetics, how students to imagine genes can be either dominant or recessive & themselves in the how that affects & changes all kinds of things. shoes of immigrants writing letters to 39 MELACHOT family back in their Morah Chana’le’s home country. They 4th graders are dipped the letters in learning the 39 tea or spilled coffee over it and baked them in categories of work an oven to get a vintage old early 1900’s feel. prohibited on Shabbos and are NEW BOOKS IN ESTY LIBRARY making a scrapbook Thanks to Sylvia Solomon & Susannah Levin about them. And its for recent donations of books to our school’s even more hands-on lending library, our kids enjoy new books! than that! This week, while learning about THANKS DR. RAISA YESHAYEV plowing they went Our WOW guest speaking this Friday to our out to the outdoor HS Girls about foot health in connection with classroom garden and used tools to till Avraham’s long LechLecha trip. & dig and pull out rocks from the earth. SPECIAL THIS COMING WEEK Monday after-school Mishmar Tzivos Hashem, Wed compost presentation at CTMale & Wed EQUIVELANT FRACTIONS Bake-Sale. A doctor is coming as a WOW It may look different and have different guest for Parsha Vayera. And this week is the numbers on top and bottom but they match last chance for cans to add to our big project: up to the same fraction. 5th graders are white cans 15.5 oz size, or blue/green tuna. learning about this now in their math class.
at Maimonides and in the Community 11/9: SHABBOS LECH LECHA
11/11: FATHER’S LOST GOLD
We meet Avra(ha)m and Sarah this week!
Dr. Mark Biederman shares his 20-year quest to find gold coins which his father's family buried in their backyard in Poland before being deported and the discoveries about his family learned along the way. 3 times/ locations in our area: Sunday, the 10th, 7pm at Saratoga Chabad; 5pm at Union College’s Old Chapel; and 7:30-9:30pm with Clifton Park Chabad at Clifton Park Senior Community Center: 6 Clifton Common Ct.
11/9: CBAJ MINCHA CHANGE After clocks change, CBAJ will do Mincha on Shabbos afternoons following morning services/ Kiddush, and schedule Maariv 15 minutes after Shabbos each week (until Spring) so people can drive back to Shul after saying Baruch HaMavdil.
11/9: FIRST PIZZA NIGHT Sat Night at Maimonides, by the High School girls in “Nathan’s Kitchen” starts at 7:15pm. Eat-In/ Take-Out. New ovens are installed! Pre-orders help efficiency: bnoschayaprograms@gmail.com
11/12: THE LIGHT OF HOPE
… is the title of the Holocaust film screened at Page Hall UAlbany Downtown Campus, 135 Western Ave at 7pm based on the story of Elisabeth Eidenbenz (1913-2011) and her 11/9: RABBI REISMAN IS BACK female co-workers who saved almost 600 Rabbi Reisman’s Navi Shiur resumes once again, to infants in SW France during World War II. be screened live from Brooklyn 9pm on Sat Nights This 27th annual Kristallnacht Interfaith at the CBAJ Conference Room. Commemoration is sponsored by Holocaust Survivors & Friends Education Center, 11/10: SUNDAY CHASSIDUS Community Relations Council of the Jewish Sunday night Mincha Maariv at Shomray Torah is Federation, and UAlbany’s Judaic Studies program. having a Friendsgiving Meal on Thursday. Cost is around sunset time, with a quick vurt between $17.44 all-inclusive - soup to nuts. Chef Olga is a Mincha and Maariv and a nice Chassidus class after superb cook. Parking is available in the visitor's 11/14: IVAN VAMOS IN COLONIE Maariv. Regardless of clock changes this is on! parking lot to the side of Indian Quad. Ivan Vamos (born in 1938) will tell the personal story of a young boy’s survival of the Holocaust in 11/11: SHTEEBLE MAARIV CHANGE Hungary. 6pm at the Colonie Town Library. More 12/11: PARENT-TEACHER CONF. Now that the clocks changed, Maariv is each night info? Chaicentercolonie@gmail.com Parents Teacher conferences will be on Wed, Dec (Monday thru Thursday) at 8pm. Sunday Mincha11. No school that day so teachers can meet with Maariv will be at the Zman. We are still exploring 11/15: SHORT FRIDAY, REMINDER! parents to discuss educational goals and student the possibility of a 3:15pm Mincha Minyan at progress. Parents: If you are unable to attend on Dismissal at 2:15pm on “short” Fridays. Please be school (Mon-Thurs) before pickup but that will this date, please let the office know ASAP so we on time, especially on these short Fridays. depend on how many are able to come. can plan the schedule accordingly and you can be in touch with teachers to discuss your child(ren).
11/11: VETERANS DAY PARADE
11/18: “KIDS CAN BUILD” - COME TO CROSSGATES MALL AT 4PM
1/10-12: WOMENS SHABBAT
11/20: CBAJ BOOK CLUB MEETS
At the historic Gideon Putnam Resort in the heart of Saratoga Spa State Park for an inspiring, relaxing, and invigorating Shabbat weekend together with local Jewish women. Organized by Capital Region Chabad’s Jewish Womens Circles, at an all-inclusive rate of $250pp (per doubleoccupancy). Price goes up after Dec 1st. For more info & to register, see: WomensShabbat.com
11am to 2pm, kicks off at the corner of Central Ave and Ontario Street at 11am, with the reviewing Parents (community is welcome, too!): Please come stand on the steps of the State Education Building from school 3:30pm dismissal to the 4pm display, judging and ceremony at Crossgates Mall on Nov on Washington Ave, just across the NYS Capitol. 18th. Please come to support our kids efforts on this project. All cans (from all participating schools) 11/11: VETERANS DAY will be donated to the Shalom Food Pantry. School is open. Parent Conferences will be this year on Wednesday December 11th. No school that day.
11/11: ALBANY INSTITUTE FREE Veterans Day free admission for all at the Albany Institute of History and Art. 10am-5pm.
11/11: AFTER-SCHOOL MISHMAR Special Tzivos Hashem program after-school with Morah Chana’le for kindergarten through 7th grade. 3:30-4:15pm. Light snacks served. Those attending Mishmar, please pick kids up at 4:15pm, on time. Thanks!
At a CBAJ member home. The first book is Elie Wiesel’s “Souls on Fire”.
12/23: MAIMONIDES AUCTION
Monday night, second night of Chanukah, 5-7pm. Save the date for this special event! The Kochmans Beth Israel in Schenectady hosts Rabbi Shalom always prepare a delicious Chanukah feast - this Hammer for the annual Lauber Lecture. Dinner time a deli-cious old-style deli, with homemade 5:30pm, lecture at 7pm. $18 for dinner and lecture, corned beef and sauerkraut and all the fixings! $10 for lecture only. Info/RSVP: (518) 374-0685
11/20: RABBI HAMMER AT C.B.I.
11/21: FRIENDS-GIVING MEAL Kosher Dining on UAlbany’s Indian Quad is
1/23: F.C. WINE AND DINE EVENT At Glennpeters to benefit the Friendship Circle.
MAIMONIDES SCHOOL & COMMUNITY (Nursery / Elementary / High School) 404 Partridge Street Albany NY 12208 (518) 453-9363/3434 maimonidesschool@gmail.com Founded in 1980, Maimonides is chartered by the NYS Board of Regents and is a JF-NENY Beneficiary “A Beautiful Blend: Torah & Worldly Experience!”