|
While You're Dusting Off Those Boxes...
As you're cleaning for Pesach, you might run across benchers from weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and other family simchas. If you want to put them to good use, please consider donating them to CJHS. We'll make good use of them! Thanks to the Saffir and Miller families who recently donated b'nai mitzvah benchers to CJHS. |
|
CJHS Families in the News
AFHU Scholarship Luncheon
David M. Rubin, parent of CJHS freshman Gabriel Rubin, will receive American Friends of The Hebrew University's Torch of Learning Award at AFHU's inaugural Scholarship Luncheon on Wednesday, May 7, at noon at the Standard Club. The keynote speaker is Bret Stephens, columnist for the Wall Street Journal and former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. For information and reservations contact Judy Siegal at 312.329.0332.
Rare Surgical Procedure Completed
Earlier this week, doctors successfully completed a rare four-way domino paired kidney exchange transplant surgery involving four kidney donors and four recipients. Dr. Michael Abecassis, father of CJHS freshman Melissa Abecassis, sophomore Maxwell Abecassis, and junior Victor Abecassis, serves as chief of the division of organ transplantation at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. |
|
In Case of
Emergency:
CJHS has recently implemented the Honeywell Instant Alert for Schools, an Internet-based system that will automatically notify registered students, parents, faculty and staff of any school closing or emergency. Click here for the instruction sheet for accessing the system and creating your profile. Click here to register.
In addition, closings will be posted on ECC's website as well as the following:
1. RADIO/TELEVISION: Tune in to WGN Radio 720, WBBM 780, CBS2, NBC5, ABC7, WGN News, FOX32, or CLTV.
2. You can also check the Athletic Hotline, 847.423.5969, for scheduling changes due to weather. |
|
E-News Deadline:
Wednesday at noon.
Submit information and questions to enews@cjhs.org.
Material received after the deadline will be included in the next week's E-News.
CJHS Website:
| |
|
|
CJHS Seniors Experience Success with College Decisions
The majority of colleges have sent out letters of acceptance to U.S. high school seniors, and the CJHS Class of 2008 has had remarkable success with college admissions. Our seniors have received over 100 acceptances to more than 50 outstanding schools across the country.
We are proud to announce that the following schools have admitted CJHS students:
American Jewish U, American, Barnard/List College of  Jewish Studies, Binghamton U, Boston U, Brandeis,  Brown, Butler, Columbia/List College of Jewish Studies, Cornell, Dartmouth, DePauw, George Washington, Grinnell, Goucher, Harvard, Hofstra,  Indiana, Macalester,
MIT, Michigan State, Northern Michigan, Northwestern, Oberlin, Ohio State, Princeton, Rutgers, Seton Hall, Southern Illinois, Suffolk, Syracuse, Tufts, Tulane, Washington U in St. Louis, Wesleyan, U of Chicago, U of Delaware, U of Denver, U of Illinois at Chicago,
U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U of Kansas, U of Maryland, U of Michigan, U  of Montana, U of Pittsburgh, U of Wisconsin, and Yale.
Now, with the help of the CJHS College Counseling department, our students are making their own decisions. According to CJHS Director of College Counseling Bruce Scher, no matter which colleges our students decide to attend, the education they have received at CJHS prepares them to succeed academically and to become campus leaders.
|
All-School Shabbaton in All-New Settings
Last Shabbat, 80+ members of the CJHS community gathered for the first All-School Shabbaton to take place within the school building. After school on Friday, students went to a nearby park to relax before returning to a CJHS building that looked quite different from the school they left only an hour earlier. The Beit Knesset had a new setup, the tables in the cafeteria were arranged into a large U, and other changes were in effect to transform our usual school space into a Shabbat space. Friday night featured spirited tefillot and a delicious dinner, followed by a series of games - including a CJHS favorite, the tapping game.
On Shabbat morning, the community came together for davening. Afterward, students reveled in the glorious weather as they walked to Weinberg Community/Gidwitz Place for a delicious lunch,  followed by time to schmooze and sing with the residents.
While at Gidwitz, students enjoyed spending time with a couple of their bubbies, as well as Dr. Schaffner's mother. During the afternoon, the students had free time, a dodgeball tournament (yasher koach to the Red Team!), and an Environmental Club program on the relationship between humans and God in nature.
After mincha, students enjoyed singing at Seudah Shlishit. Havdalah came so quickly that it was hard to believe it was already after 8:00 p.m. The Shabbaton concluded with a mad dash around the building as students packed, cleaned, and reset the school in a record 24 minutes.
Enjoy these photographs taken on Friday afternoon at the Shabbaton.
Yasher koach to the Shabbaton Committee for their weeks upon weeks of hard work: Lilli Flink, Josh Warshawsky, Richard Kahn, Rachel Braun, Aaron Weinberg, Rachel Binstock, Jeremy Hipps, Talia Stoehr, David Weltman, Daniel Kanter, Francesca Hirschfeld, Aviva Schwartz, Esther Lowe, Noa Fleischacker, and Rena Forester.
Many thanks to Rabbi Goldberg, Rabbi Barkan, Mr. Pomeranz, Mrs. Meadows, Mr. Guidone, and Ms. Musin for staffing the Shabbaton. Their monumental contributions to the Shabbaton experience cannot be expressed in words.
Thank you to Ms. Altman and Mr. Guidone for their phenomenal support of the program and willingness to make the seemingly impossible happen.
Yasher koach to Ms. Musin for developing, guiding and supervising the entire Shabbaton program. |
Lishma at CJHS Continues May 15
Dale Griffith - The Quest for Faith in Modern Secular Literature
The third session of Lishma at CJHS - featuring Dale Griffith, CJHS English Department chair - took place this Wednesday and drew accolades from a highly appreciative audience. Mr. Griffith's lecture, "The Quest for Faith in Modern Secular Literature," explored Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter, Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and Saul Bellow's Hertzog - stories which, according to Mr. Griffith, "demonstrate a bad faith destined to be transformed by a great Presence, drawing its protagonists towards a silent truth which can be neither objectified nor rationalized." Mr. Griffith encouraged his audience to view this Presence from beyond the realm of religious experience alone, to "allow this sort of existential hunger into our lives..., to experience that deeply-seated longing for being, in the presence of a silence which shatters the conventional boundaries of the 'self' and changes our lives in turn."
The last session is scheduled for May 15 and features Professor Benjamin Sommer, Director of the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies at Northwestern University. Lishma at CJHS is proud to count the Crown Family Center as its most recent Visionary Partner. We hope to see all of you for what promises to be a wonderful conclusion for Lishma at CJHS 2007-08.
|
|
Open Mic Afternoon April 15
The CJHS Literary Journal will host its third annual Open Mic Afternoon on April 15, from 3:45-5:45 p.m. Students, faculty, and staff can sign up to read poetry or prose, or perform music at the event. If you are interested in participating, please contact Ms. Marcus. We encourage everyone to watch our students display their talents in the literary and performing arts in this casual setting. Even if you don't sign up in advance, bring a piece to read or sing: There will be open spots, and you may be inspired to perform when you arrive!
The Open Mic event is a pre-release party for The Prints, the CJHS Literary Journal, which will be published after Pesach break. |
|
Evening of Music April 15
On Tuesday April 15 at 7:00 p.m. at Gidwitz Place, 1601 Lake Cook Road, Deerfield, CJHS will present an evening of classical and modern music performed by some of our most talented musicians. In the first portion of the program, instrumentalists and vocalists will perform solo and chamber works by composers ranging from Bach and Schubert to Bloch and Schoenfeld. The second half of the program will feature compositions written and performed by our own student composers, along with performances by our jazz and contemporary musicians. The evening will conclude with a dessert reception |
|
CJHS to Celebrate Israel's 60th Birthday on May 8, 2008
In the site of what eventually became Independence Hall, 66 families gathered on 20 Nissan, April 11, 1909 to participate in a lottery for plots of land for Ahuzat Bayit, a new Jewish neighborhood outside Jaffa. Meir Dizengoff and his wife Zina won lot #43 and built their home there. He served as head of the new neighborhood committee, and later became the first mayor of Tel Aviv.
In 1910, at a general meeting of the Ahuzat Bayit residents, the name of the neighborhood was changed by majority vote to Tel Aviv, inspired by Theodor (Binyamin Ze'ev) Herzl's book "Altneuland," the title given by Nahum Sokolow to his Hebrew translation - Tel Aviv means "Hill of Spring." Following the death of his wife in 1930, Meir Dizengoff donated his house to his beloved city and requested that it be turned into a museum. The building was expanded and renovated and in 1936 became the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. In May 1948, the declaration of the creation of the State of Israel took place in the Independence Hall at the museum.
Plans are well underway for CJHS's Yom Haatzmaut celebration on Thursday, May 8! Stay tuned for more details. |
Parent Speaks to Chemistry Class
Dr. Cliff Wolf, father of CJHS sophomore student Danielle Wolf, spoke Thursday, to Mr. Ron Urick's Chemistry classes. Dr. Wolf, a radiologist, talked about the applications of nuclear chemistry in the realm of medicine. Mr. Urick's classes recently studied nuclear chemistry and some of its related applications.
|
Mask Workshop in Drama Classes
This week, Ms. Dori Robinson's drama class enjoyed two mask performance workshops led by guest artist Jeff Semmerling of Semmerling & Schaefer Mask  Artists Studios and Inside Out Art Studio. The focus of the workshops was both the history and the usage of masks. Students also worked with the famous Le Coq "basil" masks, and finished with a Commedia dell'arte performance. This year, the drama class is learning the tactile aspects of theatre, such as puppetry, design, and mask work. The final project will be a two-minute music video done in conjunction with the dance class.
|
|
Students Charity Featured on Radio
On Thursday, April 3, senior Vanessa Youshaei and her brother Jonathon were interviewed on The Morning Break Sports Show on local radio station 1240 AM. They discussed The Charity Stripe, an organization they founded to raise money for an inner-city tutoring program called 826 Chicago. Vanessa and Jonathon's charity was also chosen as the radio station's "charitable group of the month" for April. The station will donate $5 for every call received all month between the hours of 10 a.m. and noon, Monday-Friday.
To support the effort, call 773.792.1240 or click here to visit the station's website. |
|
Culture Club Attends Metropolitan Opera Simulcast of La Boheme
On Sunday, April 5, thirteen CJHS students, parents, and faculty attended the HD production of the Puccini opera, La Boheme, at the Evanston Cine Arts Theater. The Metropolitan Opera broadcasts operas live on Saturdays and re-broadcasts them again on Sunday at theaters throughout the country. Future plans include attending a play, an opera, a dance program, an orchestral concert, and a Shakespeare play.
|
|
Sports Banquet May 14
The fourth annual CJHS spring sports banquet will take place on Wednesday, May 14 from 7:30-9:00 p.m. at CJHS. This dessert reception, for CJHS athletes, families, and friends, is an upbeat celebration of the year in sports at CJHS. The program includes a multi-media presentation, a keynote speaker, a student performance, a raffle, recognition of coaches, and an awards presentation.
For the second year, we will present three separate awards to one female and one male CJHS student-athlete in the following categories: 1) best attitude; 2) most improved; and 3) leadership. |
|
Join Us for Our Third Annual Student-Directed One-Act Plays
The Fine and Performing Arts Department is proud to announce the opening of the third annual SNAPSHOTS: Student-Directed One-Act plays on Monday, May 12 at 5:00 p.m. in the Beit Knesset at CJHS. Student directors include Donna Abisdris, Karen Avidar, David Israel, and Joel Pachefsky. This year's performance will include sections from plays such as Sure Thing, Defiled, The Last Flower, and House of Blue Leaves. During breaks between acts, audience members will enjoy music performed by Victor Abecassis and a movement piece choreographed by Ms. Dori Robinson. The performance will culminate with a one-act featuring all the actors directed by Lisa Wiznitzer. This evening of student-directed plays is under the supervision of Ms. Robinson. Don't miss this final student performance of the 2007-2008 school year! |
Bike the Drive with Chai Lifeline Midwest
Students, faculty, parents, and friends are invited to join representatives of other local Jewish day schools in raising money for a worthy cause. Enjoy a fantastic bike course, get fit, and raise funds for the children of Chai Lifeline by becoming a Chai Cyclist and participating in the annual Bank of America Bike the Drive, to be held on beautiful Lake Shore Drive on Sunday, May 25.
Experienced and novice riders are welcome to bike either half the route or the entire route, which begins at Buckingham Fountain. For more information, contact Jeremy Hipps, Esther Lowe, or Dr. Gary Auslander. Visit the Chai Lifeline website to register directly and learn more.
Train for Bike the Drive
The great fried matzah bike ride, at 9:00 a.m., on Friday, April 25, is a training ride for Chai Lifeline's Bike the Drive. Beginning in Wilmette, riders will trek through the North Shore for a total of 12-15 miles. Pesach snacks will be provided. If you have not already registered for the bike drive please do so by clicking here. |
|
Breakfast Sponsorship
Thank you to the family of Ari Frankel for sponsoring breakfast on April 8 and to the family of Hannah Rosenbaum for sponsoring breakfast on April 10 in honor of their birthdays.
If you would like to sponsor breakfast in honor of a student's birthday (or any occasion), please contact Ms. Inez Altman via email or by phone at 847.324.3713. The students love the recognition, and the bagels are great, too! |
|
Religious Life
This week Seth Berkman, Rena Forester, Rabbi Goldberg, Sophie Massey, Matthew Levin and Shai Kamin led Tefillah; Mr. Yoni Pomeranz and Richard Kahn read Torah; and Avi Coven gave a D'var Torah.
Pesach is around the corner!
The Rabbinical Assembly's 2008 Pesach Guide is now available on the RA website. Also available is the teshuvah (rabbinic, legal responsa) about the special practices that must be followed when Pesach begins on a Saturday night. Please click here to go to the RA's website and click on the appropriate links for more information. |
|
Community News & Events
A Chicago Israeli Community Member Needs Your Help
A Bone Marrow Registration Drive is being conducted on April 13 to assist a member of the Chicago Israeli community, with a specific need for persons of Sephardic or Ashkenazi background.
Testing is free and easy. Once tested, your information will be included in a confidential database to assist others throughout the world in need of a bone marrow transplant. To donate, you must be in general good health, be between the ages of 18 and 55, have no major health problems or history of cancer, and have no surgical pins or rods in the spine.
The drive occurs at the following places and times:
11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
at JCC Northbrook - 300 River Drive
2:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. at
Chicago Center for Torah and Chesed: 6350 N. Troy Ave.
4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. at Skokie Kollell: 3723 Dempster St.
Israel Solidarity Day Mark your calendars for the Walk with Israel, Sunday, May 4 at McCormick Place - Lakeside Center. To register or volunteer or for more information, click here or call 312.444.2850. | |
|
Shabbat Shalom
Candlelighting is at 7:11 p.m. today. Shabbat shalom! | |
|
