Shiriyah 5772 Hallways in Panoramic View

The Frisch School Shiriyah Hallways have been uploaded to Photosynth so you can re-experience them in full panoramic view. They appear below. Enjoy!

Freshman Yetziat Mitzrayim Hallway


Sophomore Midbar Hallway


Junior Matan Torah Hallway


Senior Mishkan Hallway

Shiriyah 5772 Cake Boss in Panoramic View

Pictures from the Shiriyah Cake Boss competition are now online in full panoramic view thanks to an online app called Photosynth. You can view the results below. Other synths to follow soon. Enjoy!

Shiriyah

Dear Parents, Alumni, Faculty and Friends,

Wow – it is hard to believe that Shiriyah was only 6 days ago. What an incredible and moving night it was!!!

How blessed we are at Frisch to be a part of such an educational and emotional experience. Every year, when I watch and listen to our talented young men and women, the singing and Ruach never fails to bring tears to my eyes. This year, more than one thousand alumni, parents and grandparents watched this event from all corners of the world as we streamed Shiriyah live for the first time. The connection our students and their families maintain to our school through this very special experience is phenomenal.

Our children were a great source of Nachat at Shiriyah. From the transformative hallways to the beautiful art work, from our own version of Shiriyah-themed "Cake Boss” and “Project Runway” to the singing and the stomp, our students made our yeshiva proud.

Shiriyah is one of the hallmarks of Frisch and has important educational, religious and social aspects. What you experienced in the gym on Thursday night was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the students’ creativity, excitement and camaraderie. Each grade's work included an incredible amount of artistic and dramatic creativity, as well as Torah study. And, almost as inspiring as what the kids can accomplish is the devotion of our children’s teachers, who basically spent an entire week away from home as they spent days and late night at the school guiding each of the teams.

I want to take this opportunity to express my Hakarat HaTov to everyone who helped make this one of the most incredible Shiriyahs ever.

Thank you to our talented administration and faculty who spent countless hours last week advising and working with our students. Thank you to the Frisch office staff for all of their hard work this past week and thank you to our maintenance staff, who, with a smile on their faces helped keep our building in working order.

Thank you to Rabbi Ciner, whose talent, energy and creativity inspires everyone to raise the bar on what can be accomplished in a manner that continually enhances our children's education.

As you know, all of this takes money…lots of money. Frisch can continue to present the best education to our children, but only if we, the parents provide the proper and necessary financial resources. I would like to once again thank everyone who came forward to help sponsor this year's Shiriyah; their names are listed below.

And, as you all know our Annual Dinner campaign, the most important fundraiser of the year, is just three weeks away. I ask you all to consider making a donation to that campaign. Every donation at every level makes a difference and allows us to continue to be the incredible place that we are. Many of you have already donated generously and I thank you for that. But, we are still short of our budgeted goals and we still do not have 100% participation by our parent body. Please, if you haven’t donated yet to the Annual Dinner campaign, do it now. And if you were moved, as I was, by last week’s Shiriyah, please consider increasing your pledge. We need the additional funds and I thank you in advance. Please go to www.frischdinner.com and make your pledge.

I hope everyone has a wonderful vacation.

Thank you and I look forward to greeting you at the Dinner on February 4.

-Martin Heistein

President

Rona and Henry Anhalt

Stacey and Jay Barth

The Bernstein Family

Karen and Phillip Billet

Patty and Samuel Borodach

Margery and Allan Brauner

Michele and Jeffrey Burbank

Susan and Michael Edwards

Amy and Myron Eagle

Fredelyn and Gil Damari

Arieh Fox

Susie and Kalman Fishbein

Debbie and Phillip Fishel

Mindy and Eddie Goldberg

Anne and Jerry Gontownik

Jeanette and Martin Heistein

Alisa and Jeffrey Kigner

Julie and Richard Lobel

Stacey and Elliot Maza

Debra Pine and Mark Orenshein

Batya and Nachi Paul

Elana and Malcom Samad

Adam Schorr

Tammy and Ken Secemski

Rena and Douglas Soclof

Shira and Seth Levine

Gila and Steven Stone

Alissa and Sam Zagha

Moshe and Zwebner

#FrischShiriyah takes over Facebook (and Twitter too)!!!

It is always so exciting to watch our students using all of their talents for Shiriyah. This year we have added additional aspects to the Shiriyah experience utilizing the world of social media with which our kids are so familiar. We do this with the philosophy that Shiriyah can be an opportunity to model for our students the great power of social media as a tool for constructive sharing, what noted technology thinker Clay Shirky calls Cognitive Surplus.

With that in mind, you might have noticed our ubiquitous presence on our Frisch School Twitter feed sending updates about the various events of this exciting week with the "hashtag" #FrischShiriyah. We have also launched for the first time our Frisch School Facebook Page so we can post even more rich and interactive content about Shiriyah including videos and photos. You can access this page by going to the following direct link: https://www.facebook.com/FrischSchool. While you're on our page, make sure to "Like Us" so you can see our updates during Shiriyah and throughout the school year on your Facebook News Feed (screenshot below).



However, this is only a part of our use of Facebook and Twitter for Shiriyah. We have provided our students the opportunity to use it as well. We have done this by creating Facebook Groups for each grade. These groups are closed to the world at large but open to our students and faculty. This was an experiment, we really did not know what to expect, while we closely monitored this undertaking. I am happy to report that so far our experiment has been a resounding success. The grades have really come together harnessing the power of this new medium to brainstorm, organize, and create.

Each grade has used their groups to post a laundry list of everything needed for the Hallways, Stomp, Project Runway, Cake Boss, and the list goes on and on. They have also found more creative ways to use this online medium. Here are a few specific examples.

• The Freshmen posted YouTube videos of each of their songs for Shiriyah night for everyone to watch and practice at home. 
• The Sophomores have posted photo albums of "The Midbar Experience". 
• The Juniors have posted pictures of various odds and ends that they had around the house (including wood and old dressers) to use for the hallways. 
• The Seniors have been posting to their "Chevra" constant words of encouragement about the stomp, choir/medley, banner, video, and mural.

I wish I could show you the tremendous work and creativity that I am seeing online till late at night, the virtual Shiriyah after the physical building has already been closed for the evening, but these groups are only open to our students (with close monitoring by the faculty) so they can feel comfortable interacting informally with their classmates to help make such a massive undertaking into a reality.

The grades have also utilized public twitter feeds to broadcast to the world their enthusiasm and excitement about Shiriyah. You can view them using the following links: twitter.com/shiriyah9, twitter.com/shiriyah10, twitter.com/shiriyah11, twitter.com/shiriyah12.

Finally, we are excited to announce, as Mrs. Weitzman just emailed, that this year for the first time we will be live streaming Shiriyah night for friends, relatives, and alumni who cannot make it to the Frisch gym but would like to share in the Shiriyah experience. All you will need to do is go to our homepage, http://frisch.org/ and the video should be streaming directly from the website starting at 7:30PM. We are looking forward to seeing all of you Shiriyah night either physically in our gym to cheer on our talented and hardworking students or virtually through Frisch.org.

Kol Tuv,

Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky
Director of Educational Technology

Shiriyah is less than 30 hours away!

Shiriyah 5772 is only 30 hours away! For those of you who may be unable to attend Shiriyah in person, will be streaming Shiriyah live! Please go to to www.frisch.org on Thursday night, January 12th at 7:30 p.m. to feel the Ruach and experience this wonderful event live!

SHIRIYAH 5772

begins at

7:30 p.m. in our Zayat Athletic Center

Our corridors, each of which is decorated by one of the grades,

will be open for visitor viewing at 6:30 p.m.

You may show your appreciation for the amazing experience your children have had this week by becoming a Shriyah sponsor.

Donations at every level are appreciated and valued.

To become a Shiriyah sponsor, click here.

We thank the following families who have already come forward to sponsor Shiriyah 5772:

Michele and Jeffrey Burbank

Susan and Michael Edwards

Fredelyn and Gil Damari

Susie and Kalman Fishbein

Alsia and Jeffrey Kigner

Batya and Nachi Paul

Elana and Malcom Samad

Adam Schorr

Rena and Douglas Soclof

Alissa and Samm Zagha

We look forward to seeing at Shiriyah 5772!

Shiriyah 5772- Please Join Us

It is our great pleasure to invite the entire Frisch School Community to

SHIRIYAH 5772

The culminating evening of our week-long Shiriyah begins at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday evening, January 12, 2012, in our Zayat Athletic Center

Our corridors, each of which is decorated by one of the grades, will be open for visitor viewing at 6:30 p.m.

Shiriyah is not just a celebration of Frisch spirit, not just an excuse for all of us to have some fun—actually lots of fun—in the midst of the school year. Shiriyah is an integral part of the intellectual religious and communal life of the more than 700 teenagers and adults who spend their days at Frisch. It is an opportunity for each Frisch student to develop and demonstrate his/her talents and skills: leadership, artistic/musical/dramatic/choreographic creativity, Torah study and scholarship, and so much more. Shiriyah also brings grades together in friendship, teamwork and camaraderie. The best part of Shiriyah is the part parents don’t get to see: It’s the incredible sight of hundreds of kids working together, enjoying one another, older grades helping the freshmen, for hours each day and night and all day on Sunday as they prepare for Thursday night’s performances.

As we reported to parents on Friday when we broke Shiriyah, this year’s Shiriyah is based on the unique theme of Sefer Shemot: The Creation of a Nation. The book can clearly be divided into four thematic sections- (1) The exile and exodus from Mitzrayim, (2) the nation's travels and growth in the desert, (3) the awe inspiring revelation at Har Sinai and (4) the book’s culmination with the Jewish nation creating sacred space for God through the Mishkan. Each of these steps was necessary and contributed to the foundation of the Jewish nation as a unified people devoted in the service of God, and each grade has been assigned one of these themes.
Throughout the next week our students will be learning about these concepts in special Shi’urim and learning to express them in song, art, Torah study, and in their daily interaction with one another and with their Rebbe’im and teachers. We hope you’ll be with us on Thursday evening to see the culmination of their efforts, to tour each grade’s specially prepared corridor, and to share the incredible Ru’ach which will undoubtedly bust forth as it does each year.
LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YOU ALL THIS THURSDAY EVENING.
Dr. Kalman Stein,
Principal

Shiriya 5772

As many of you undoubtedly already know, we broke Shiriya this morning. I cannot begin to explain the craziness of the break or the extraordinary contributions of so many of the adults who spend their days at Frisch. Ask your son/daughter to describe it for you. I don't need to tell most Frisch parents how wonderful the night of Shiriya is, It's next Thursday evening, "formal" invitation to follow, but for those of you who are new to Frisch this year I assure you that it's well worth your while to spend next Thursday evening with us.

Virtually every one of our students finds his/her niche in Shiriya. But in a school of six hundred it is inevitable that there will be a few youngsters who find it a little difficult to find their place. That's our job to fix. If your son/daughter for any reason is feeling that he/she is not participating in the week's activities in a gratifying way please email Rabbi Ciner and he will make sure that the grade's faculty advisors reach out (quietly and seamlessly) to him/her and find an appropriate avenue to integrate him/her into the flow of Shiriya.

Shiriyah is such an important part of life at The Frisch School that it would never occur to us to sell tickets of admission. But Shiriyah is very expensive. Just setting up the seating, audio-visual arrangements, and decorations in the gym is quite costly as is the extraordinary amount of material which goes into the kids' transformation of the building into a Shiriya theme park. Please consider making a contribution, at Donate.Frisch.org or by check, to help defray this large (but so worthwhile) expense.

Shiriya has many components as our kids demonstrate their skills and strengths in so many areas: Art, music, scholarship, drama, dance, leadership, Torah. It creates a spirit of camaraderie which permeates the school and glows throughout the entire school year. The themes chosen each year reflect an aspect of our Torah Studies curriculum. This year we are all studying Humash Shemot and the theme, therefore, is Sefer Shemot- The Creation of a Nation

Sefer Shemot's unique theme is the Creation of a Nation. The book can clearly be divided into four thematic sections- (1) The exile and exodus from Mitzrayim, (2) the nation's travels and growth in the desert, (3) the awe inspiring revelation at Har Sinai and (4) the book's culmination with the Jewish nation creating sacred space for God through the Mishkan. Each of these steps was necessary and contributed to the foundation of the Jewish nation - as a unified people devoted in the service of God.



9th Grade:

The exile in Mitzrayim brought the nation together in ways that no other event ever has. We suffered together and then joyously celebrated our victory unified in a harmonious song at the sea. The Exodus is the cornerstone for many of the commandments in the Torah and granted the nation a unique respect for our fellow man and our Redeemer, the Almighty.



10th Grade:

The Midbar (desert) experience was no accident or mistake. God purposely led the Jews through the desolate desert and challenged them with test after test. We endured these trials and emerged with a greater sense of what it means to rely on God and how to deal with adversity. The daily miraculous existence in the Midbar afforded the nation closeness with God and chance for self-reflection.



11th Grade:

Approximately two million Jews entered a covenant with God and became known as Jews. The Har Sinai experience, a paradox of love and fear, of closeness and yet of distance, marked us as God's eternal nation. The laws that we received from amidst the thunder and lightning armed the nation with morality and religious law to shape ourselves and the world at large.



12th Grade

Out of metal, wood, precious stone and fabric the Jewish nation transform mundane physical objects and accomplish what our forefathers could only dream of - namely an abode for God. The Jewish nation become neighbors with God and thereby included the Almighty in all our national, religious and personal experiences. Spirituality was transformed from a fleeting sensation to a concrete, realistic, and constant element in every Jew's life.

Shiriya is one of the ways that we help our students experience that the joys of being a healthy teenager, of being an observant yeshiva high school student, of being a Frisch student are so extraordinary, are so much better than the patterns of behavior that have become the norm, or at least the norm as portrayed by the media, for teenage life in early twenty-first century America.

Shabbat Shalom, Dr. Kalman Stein