Dear Parents,
I am looking forward to sharing all that I experienced on our trip to Israel with our students. The trip was full of joy and wonder at every turn and I hope to convey my excitement to our students through varied activities in the coming weeks.
One of the most inspirational experiences we had was a visit to the Yemin Orde Youth Village, located north of Tel Aviv on a beautiful mountain. Yemin Orde is one of about 70 youth villages throughout Israel. Youth Villages began after the Holocaust when many children arrived in Israel as war refugees, alone and traumatized. In the years since, the villages became homes to troubled children from all over the world; many of them children of immigrant parents lacking the resources to successfully raise their children.
The children who live at Yemin Orde have all suffered trauma in their young lives either from isolation and neglect to abandonment and extreme poverty. At Yemin Orde, they find a home, a family and a future. The young adults who graduate Yemin Orde move on to become accomplished and productive citizens of Israel. Many of Israel’s top leaders were products of Yemin Orde or one of the other Israeli youth villages.
We were privileged to meet with wonderful staff member Rachel, whose family emigrated from Ethiopia via Operation Moses when she was about 7 years old. Her personal and professional narrative was full of hope and commitment for the future of all of the students. We were all very moved by the work they are doing at Yemin Orde, and look forward to connecting our students to this amazing community. Watch for more details.
L’Shalom,
Mindy
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1st Grade Olympics!
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Skyping at the Kotel with Mindy
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6TH GRADE FAMILIES PLEASE JOIN US!
Our 6th grade students will lead us in worship
FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2014
AT 6:00 PM
Service followed by a pasta dinner
(gluten free pasta option available)
Cost For Dinner:
$15.00 per child
$18.00 per adult
Please send in your payment in advance and make checks payable to TSTI.
Please RSVP to dwolkoff@tstinj.org
We look forward to celebrating Shabbat
with song and prayer!
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January 5th
1st Grade Olympics
January 10th
6th Grade Service & Dinner
January 19th
No Religious School
January 20th
No 7th Grade
January 21st
3rd – 6th Grade In Session
No Hebrew High
January 26th
6th Grade
Mitzvot Of Metrowest
Whippany, NJ
January 28th
3rd – 6th Grade In Session
No Hebrew High
January 31st
4th Grade Awesome Oneg
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Our B’nai Mitzvah
1/4 Isabelle Surloff
1/11 Andrew Aronson
1/11 Max Goldstein
1/11 Wesley Gelman
1/18 Ethan Ostroff
1/18 Miles Ostroff
1/25 David Goetz
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For Pre-Bar/Bat Mitzvah Students
And Their Parents
Attendance will be taken and we strongly
suggest you family attends this worthwhile event.This is an awesome opportunity to get great mitzvah project ideas.Click this link for more details:\
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Friday, January 31, 2014
7:30 pm
Service followed by Awesome Oneg
More details to follow.
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In our ongoing effort to improve communications and become more environmentally friendly, we are once again generating progress reports electronically. Please expect to receive your child’s progress report via email at the end of January.
Grades K-2 will receive one progress report.
EACH TIME YOU COME TO THE TEMPLE
to be donated to the Interfaith Food Pantry of the Oranges
located just a few miles away in Orange.
TSTI 