Dear young families, friends, and children of Temple Israel of Vestal,
Welcome to our 2023-2024 (5784) Hebrew School year. I am so grateful to join and serve this Jewish community. Learning with your children and you over this coming year will definitely be an awesome experience, hopefully full of growth, goodness and gladness! Whether or not you have taken part in Hebrew School in the past, I would like to encourage you to consider joining our renewed program for this year.
I will be directing our Hebrew School and, hopefully, working with you to shape a fun, warm, and kind set of programs to teach our children about Jewish traditions, Torah, and living lives of ma’asim tovim – good deeds.
We will begin our year with a series of Holiday celebrations and community gatherings! You can find more information on the calendar below. On Sunday 9/10 we will kick off our year with a program for children and families from all around our local community, in partnership with PJ Library, the Jewish Federation, Temple Concord, and Beth David. I will lead us in a special snack of foods symbolic of our prayers for a good and sweet new year, we will sound the shofar, and have an opportunity to socialise with each other as kids play together.
Between Simchat Torah and Hannukah, we will meet twice a week, with time dedicated to group learning and play as well as individualised attention in Hebrew reading and language skills. Possibly, one of these gatherings will be 1:1 tutoring either with me (Rabbi Friedman) or with one of our amazing young teachers from BU.
For now, we will plan to meet on Sundays and Wednesdays, at the times agreed upon in previous years, unless we choose to adapt to other windows of time that work better for our
families.
- Sunday class is regularly scheduled from 10:00am to 12:45pm with drop off between 9:50 and 10am.
- Wednesday class every week from 4:30pm to 6:45pm with drop off between 4:20 and 4:30pm.
Attached is a draft schedule of the entire year. This is subject to change. As we get to know each other better, we will explore how we may want to adapt our plan for learning and gathering together. You will also find attached materials developed in years past which express the educational philosophy of our program as well as registration forms to complete by the first day of Hebrew School.
Bivrkaha, With blessing,
Rabbi Micah Friedman