To Discuss at Home

Rabbi David Sher speaks to our students about upcoming events at the UN this week.

As I wrote on Friday, Rabbi David Sher, who coordinates all of our Israel education/advocacy programs and serves as faculty advisor to the students' Israel advocacy group (AISAC), ran a wonderful program today to educate our students about all that will be going on this week at the UN re: Durban and the Unilateral Palestinian Declaration of Statehood. He also gave them several great recommendations for how each student can do his/her part for Israel in and out of school. Please discuss with your son/daughter what they learened and experienced today. Any feedback would be welcome.

These are the links to the petition drive and to some of the short videos the kids saw:

The petition:
https://jcrcny.wufoo.com/forms/petition-against-a-unilaterally-declared-palestine/

Introductory Video


Durban III Rally Video


Incitement Video 1


Incitement Video 2


Also, the links to the AISAC Facebook and Twitter sites:

http://www.facebook.com/AISAC.Frisch (Can be accessed at home but not in school).
www.twitter.com/aisacfrisch (Can be accessed in school, too)

-Dr. Kalman Stein

This Week @FrischSchool

Frisch Gildor Robotics team at the Club Fair

The atmosphere in the cafeteria on Wednesday afternoon buzzed with excitement as hundreds and hundreds of students visited this year's Club Fair, their opportunity to learn about and speak with students and faculty involved in the broad variety of extracurricular activities available to Frisch students. Please, if your child has not gotten involved in interesting and stimulating activities, urge him/her to do. Rabbi Staum, Rabbi Ciner and I are always happy to speak with students about their choices and would be more than happy to speak with parents who feel their child need a gentle push in the right direction.

Last night was the first after-school Mishmar night of the new school year. Well over one hundred young men and women from all four grades participated in Rabbi Wald's Shiur and the associated Chavruta learning. It was particularly nice to see freshman taking the time to study Torah with their Senior Big Brothers/Sisters. Please encourage your son/daughter to join us on Thursday nights. Although we cannot always produce the needed ride home, Rabbi Ciner does his best to find a way home for students who want to stay until 6:00 on Thursday evening and have no way home at that time.

On Monday, in anticipation of an important and one can only pray just moderately dreadful week at the UN, all of our students will participate in a presentation which will go into the details of the UN vote, what an affirmative vote will accomplish, the importance of the US's ability to veto, Israel's position (PM Netanyahu's speech), and the important distinction between this and the vote in 1947. Students will be signing online petitions to officials in the US, urging the government to veto the resolution. The program will also talk about Wednesday's Durban III Conference on Racism which inevitably will include a great deal of anti-Semitism in the guise of anti-Zionism. The entire senior class will be going down to the UN on Wednesday for a demonstration.

Ninth Grade parents stay tuned next week for news about the freshmen's first Chessed Day which is scheduled for Wednesday.

Shabbat Shalom, Dr. Kalman Stein

9/11 Program @FrischSchool

This morning, we commemorated the tenth anniversary of 9/11 by gathering our students together for a most meaningful program. The assembly opened with video footage of that tragic day ten years ago, and was followed by a stirring presentation by our own Mr. Russel Moskowitz, a 9/11 survivor who works in our business office. Mr. Moskowitz was on the 79th floor when the attack unfolded. He both related the reality of the incidents of September 11, 2001, and reflected on the events of that day and the impact it has had on his life. His words were designed to have students appreciate their own lives and the often unseen miracles that happen to each of us on a daily basis.

Mr. Moskowitz's presentation was followed by the reading of the Prayer for the Welfare of the United States and an inspiring poem, The Names, by Billy Collins, who was Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. We concluded by reciting Tehillim for the first responders of that day who suffer various diseases as a result of their heroic efforts at Ground Zero.

The American flag-draped podium and the program set the tone for a somber and solemn, yet reflective and significant, program.