What makes Frisch great? Watch our Open House video and find out from our students and faculty!

Freshmen Biology Students Create Models of Cell Organelles

Today, ninth grade students in Dr. Furman's Biology Classes designed models of various cell organelles using various materials and presented their creations to the class. Students were assessed based on accuracy, not artistic ability, although, as you can see from the pictures below, many of our students created projects that were not only accurate but visually stunning.

Small Business Saturday is Here!

Shavua Tov!

American Express "Small Business Saturday" is here! If you have already pre-registered your AMEX card on the American Express website, you may make your donation to The Frisch School right now!

Go to donate.frisch.org.

Simply make your donation on our website (a minimum donation of $25) and you will then receive your $25 refund on your American Express statement. You will not be charged any additional fees. You will only receive one credit from American Express.

We sincerely appreciate your participation in this program and hope that this campaign will be a huge success. If you have any questions, please email elaine.weitzman@frisch.org.

Thank you for helping us make this program a success.

Support The Frisch School at no cost to you!

HAVE YOU REGISTERED YOUR AMERICAN EXPRESS CARD YET?

Reminder: Please help support The Frisch School kick off our annual campaign and make a donation to Frisch at NO COST to you - we just need a minute of your time!!

If you have an American Express card, you can donate $25 to The Frisch School without it costing you a penny!!!!! Register NOW! Donate LATER!

American Express currently has a generous program, "Small Business Saturday", in effect that will allow you to make a donation to The Frisch School using your AMEX card and receive a $25 credit on your AMEX statement. Please register NOW since there is a maximum number of refunds (200,000 cards ) that AMEX will approve, and the program is progressing very fast. This is only open to American Express cardholders. Please note the donation must be made on Saturday night, November 26th in order for you to receive the credit.

You will not be charged any additional fees. Please click here to go to the AMEX web site link and register your card. Please remember that time is running out and the refunds are limited. (You may contact AMEX customer service and ask about the Small Business Saturday program if you have additional questions). Please note that althought this program is for "small businesses", The Frisch School qualifies as a small businees therefore you may make a donation to our school through this program.

On Friday, November 25th we will be sending an email reminder along with a link to The Frisch School website (donate.frisch.org) so that you may make your donation the following day. Once you make your donation to Frisch on our secure Frisch website, AMEX will then refund you the $25 on your statement. The actual donation must be made on November 26, 2011 for you to receive the AMEX credit, but remember, you must register NOW!.

Please register today and help spread the word. Time is of the essence we need you to sign up immediately. We sincerely appreciate your participation in this program. If you have any questions, please contact The Frisch School Business Office, 201-267-9100.

The Frisch Africa Encounter: update

The Interdisciplinary Department has launched the Frisch Africa Encounter for the Sophomores, whose integrated theme is exploration. The students this year are learning Sefer Shmot, and one of the key lessons of the book is that we should treat the foreigner with kindness because we were strangers in Egypt. Students have begun to explore that idea by creating artwork based on the silhouette art of African-American artist Kara Walker, whose work tracks the plight of African Americans in the antebellum South. Students are busy making their own silhouettes based on the plight of B'nai Yisrael in Egypt. 

Kara Walker by Mrs. Ahuva Mantell

View more presentations or Upload your own.

Students in English class have read about Nigerian refugee Little Bee in Little Bee or the Price family's horrific attempt to missionize in 1960's Congo, as depicted in The Poisonwood Bible. One student used lessons from her American history course to connect the way Europeans treated Native Americans with how the West has treated Africa. French II is spending time discussing French colonization of the African continent. 

Coming next week: Smadar Goldstein, of Jewish EdTech Solutions (JETS) in Israel, will give an interactive webinar to the sophomores on the integration of Ethiopian Jewry into Israeli society. The Hebrew Language department will be teaching the sophomores a song about Ethiopian Jewry in order to prepare for the event.

Remember to support the sophomores in their Green-a-thon!

-Mrs. Tikvah Wiener

Sophomore Slam

Dear Parents:

All day long the Sophomore hallway has reverberated with excitement, singing and good memories of the Sophomore Slam.

Your children were simply extraordinary. The best part of the trip for the adults was watching the grade come together as a whole, while witnessing new friendships develop between our students. The Sophomores enthusiastically cooperated and participated in every aspect of the program. Whether it was dancing by Niagara Falls, hanging out in the hotel lobby, spirited ruach at Kabbalat Shabbat and the Frisch Tisch, or the moving slow shira as Shabbat departed, we have never seen a grade come together quite like this. Many of the faculty remarked that the experience felt much like that of a Senior Trip. The magical feeling that occurred on the trip was much easier to experience than it is to describe. It was a wonderful Shabbat.

The theme of the Sophomore Slam was transitions. Our tenth- graders are in the heart of their high school experience, and sessions were crafted to provoke thoughtful discussions regarding significant and meaningful transitioning; social, religious and intellectual. The concept of water, and the figure R' Akiva, were used as paradigmatic symbols of successful evolutions.

The faculty that accompanied the tenth-graders were crucial to the success of the trip. Rabbis John Krug, Josh Wald, Jonathan Feldman and Michael Zauderer, along with Mrs. Ahuva Mantel led engaging sessions and shiurim. Mrs. Debra Pearlman worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that every detail was made possible. Rabbi David Sher crafted the sessions and memorable slide show. Finally, Rabbi David Goldfischer's exceptional combination of creativity, substance and brilliance allowed our students to have the unforgettable experience which occurred. Frisch is very fortunate to have such a caring Rebbe and Director of Student Activities.

Our hope is that the success of the Sophomore Slam will serve as a springboard for our students as they begin a critical year. Please contact us if we can assist the process in any way.

Rabbi Eli Ciner

Freshman Retreat

Dear Parent:

Each year on the Monday morning after Retreat I write a long report to the parents. This past Monday, the day after this year's Retreat, I, like many of you, was too busy groping my way through the dark and hoping that the stuff I was squeezing onto my toothbrush was actually toothpaste to think about writing this report. But I must tell you, corny as it may sound, the glow, the warmth and the excitement of Freshman Retreat really energized me and kept me smiling through a very difficult week.

Those of you who have older Frisch students know that I always send a glowing letter about retreat because they've been terrific for years but I must tell you that this year's once again was extraordinary, in fact, they keep getting better year after year. We returned to school with the certainty that the Class of 2014 is absolutely lovely and that they will be doing great things during their four years at The Frisch School.

The theme of this year's retreat was The Individual and the Community, that is, to help youngsters think about the tension between nurturing and expressing one's unique individuality and one's responsibility to be a contributing member of the community, between conforming to the Halakhic system and personalizing one's relationship with God. As we discussed with the freshmen, that is exactly how we look at Frisch. We want each of our 600 students to be his/her own person, but at the same time we want them to come together as a school community and as members of the larger community.

The ninth graders were truly extraordinary. Throughout the long weekend they cooperated and participated completely and enthusiastically. The freshmen were fun to be with and it was a pleasure to get to know each of them a little better. It was interesting and exciting to watch the really perceptible coming together of 138 youngsters as a class even in the 25 hours, it was probably closer to 26 hours, we ended Shabbat really late, between the enthusiastic singing and dancing during the pre-Shabbat Ru'ach session and the extraordinarily spirited singing and dancing during and after Havdalah. We are confident that they will be excellent role models and leaders as were a wonderful group of twelfth graders who were chosen to be advisors at the retreat and who played an important part in its success.

The program for Freshman Retreat was a carefully crafted mix which combined a lot of plain old fun with activities designed to create social cohesiveness within the class and to get the ninth graders thinking and talking about issues such as self-esteem, making good choices, and healthy interpersonal relations. The senior advisors played a large part in creating and implementing significant pieces of the program. I don't think I've ever seen more wholesome bonding between upper and lower classmen at a retreat, nor have I encountered a freshman class which seemed happier and more eager to do things together.

Needless to say, there was also an important religious element. Beyond the beautiful davening, Zemirot (Shabbat songs), the Friday night "Frisch Tisch" which can be experienced but not adequately described in words and spirited late-night bonfire Kumsitz in the snow, there were talks and Shiurim which dealt a broad variety of substantive religious issues, including several which were raised by the kids themselves in stimulating Divrei Torah. And, by the way, ask your son/daughter about "The Last Living Jew".

The primary purpose of this letter was to tell you how terrific your kids were, and I am always reluctant to crow about Frisch, but I would be remiss if I did not mention the special people who made the retreat possible. We were accompanied by a group of (mostly) young and extraordinarily talented and dedicated Rebbe'im and teachers, too many to mention, whose ability to relate to their students is a major strength of The Frisch School and was a crucial ingredient for the success of the retreat. Special mention needs to be made of the creative (and often really funny) contributions by Rabbis Gedaliah Jaffe, Joshua Wald, Neil Fleischmann, David Goldfischer, Rabbi John Krug, and Michael Zauderer. Special thanks to Mrs. Debra Pearlman who works behind the scenes on the countless details which make retreat possible. Finally, I am certain that no school has an associate principal as talented, creative and dedicated to the students as Rabbi Eli Ciner who each year somehow manages to put together an even better organized, better run, more fulfilling retreat/Shabbaton than the excellent one we had experienced the year before.

I wish you, the parents, and to be honest, the parents of younger children who are trying to decide where to send their children for high school, had been able to experience just a piece of this incredible weekend.

Dr. Kalman Stein