Portland Jewish Academy is a beneficiary agency of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland and is proud of our partnership with them in strengthening our local Jewish community as well as the global community.
A WORD FROM LISA
Lisa Horowitz, Executive Director of the Schnitzer Family Campus and proud PJA alumni parent,
shares her views on PJA, what's happening on campus, and how she knows,
first hand, about PJA's most special qualities.
One week from today, PJA students will be coming back to school and we are so ready! The parking lot is newly striped; carpets have been washed, paint re-touched and everything sparkles. Teachers are back and classrooms are beginning to take on the teachers’ personalities as bulletin boards go up and classroom supplies come out of summer storage. The only thing missing is the students!
We are so looking forward to welcoming our kids back. Our PJA students and families are the reason we are all here - the reason why all the physical preparations have taken place and so many plans laid over the summer to ensure a stellar school year. Without our students’ laughter animating our hallways and playgrounds or their studious heads bent over math problems or a writing passage – our school would be just a hollow shell.
Many families over the years have found that PJA is a warm and welcoming place, not only for the children but for the parents as well. If you are a returning family, please help us extend a big PJA Proud welcome to our many new families and staff members. If you are new to PJA, welcome! I look forward to meeting you and we all look forward to working with you and your children to make this the best possible year.
Unlike some years, the Jewish holidays come right after the start of school; so close, in fact, that I tend to agree with a friend who described the holidays as “colliding” with the beginning of the school year! It’s a great time to make new friends and reconnect with existing friends. Whether you are new to PJA or a family of many years’ standing, I wish you a sweet and happy New Year, shana tova u’metuka.
Both the Jewish calendar and academic calendar contain many opportunities for transition and reflection. In the life of a school, June is a time of major transitions, as our 8th graders graduate, our 5th graders become middle schoolers, preschoolers move up into kindergarten or TK, and everyone moves up a grade.
Along with those transitions come time for reflection, and it’s appropriate to look back on this past year and how much our students have grown and learned. I had the great pleasure of attending the 1st grade siddur celebration last week. I was astounded at how well the children read in Hebrew and how poised they all were on stage at such a young age. I was moved to have been asked to help hold the tallitot over the children as they were blessed. There is really nothing more gratifying than seeing children, parents, siblings and grandparents all beaming with pride and pleasure as the children receive the prayerbook they will use through their years at PJA. Kol ha kavod and mazel tov to all!
I’m looking forward to our 8th grade graduation tonight – that is, “looking forward” with a mixture of both pleasure and sadness. It is so lovely to hear from the young men and women who we are sending off to high school and at the same time so sad that we won’t be enjoying having them here every day next year. They are ready to move, on, though, even if some of us aren’t quite ready to let them go yet!
June is also a time when we touch base with our graduates to see how they are doing. We saw many of them at the PJA Alumni and Friends Spaghetti Dinner last night. It was well worth attending, not only for the secret-recipe spaghetti sauce but also to meet and greet friends old and new.
Our class of 2006 is graduating from high school and our class of 2002 is graduating from college – it’s great to see the terrific young men and women who have come through PJA before, and to imagine how in years to come students who are now in our elementary and middle schools will go on to exciting new adventures -- gap years in Israel and Peru; college at U of O, OSU, Colorado College and NYU; graduate school at Berkeley law school, and UW law and Oxford, among many others. Best wishes to all as they follow exciting new paths!
Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of attending two very different PJA events in one night, both of which brought home to me what a warm and welcoming (not to mention talented!) community we have at PJA.
The evening started with a star-studded cast of Morah Celinda’s kindergarteners presenting Peter Rabbit/The Musical. The kids were just terrific. The bunnies hopped enthusiastically; the narrators spoke with just the right amount of drama; and the McGregors were wonderful.
As I looked around the audience that evening, I was struck not only by how much everyone was enjoying themselves but also by how many people from different walks of life were there. In addition to the usual complement of proud siblings, parents and grandparents toting cameras, I saw a couple of PJA middle schoolers who had come to cheer on their young friends. I saw preschool teachers who had come to see “their” kids. Every administrator was in attendance, along with the staff of Kidscorner, who also wanted to see “their” kids in action. And one of the MJCC’s maintenance staff stood at the back of the room, taking time from his busy schedule to enjoy our kids’ performance along with everyone else.
It was so heartening to feel a nearly palpable sense of love and support from everyone in the room. That night, the kindergarteners were truly “our kids” for all of us in the room.
I had to leave Peter Rabbit a bit early to head down to Oregon Jewish Museum, where Harriet’s 5th grade class was presenting its annual show on their families’ histories. We started the evening in OJM’s beautiful new screening room, where a standing-room-only crowd watched a slide show presentation. Then the student docents led tours of their exhibition, lovingly mounted by OJM Executive Director Judy Margles (herself a PJA alumnae parent!) and her staff. The students’ artwork and writing were impressive and the stories they told about how the artifact they had chosen reflected their families’ histories were inspiring. Grandparents, parents, friends, siblings, teachers, administrators and community members – we all took pride in the 5th graders’ beautifully executed and thoughtful work.
These next few weeks will be full of such culminating experiences. It is such a pleasure to watch your children grow and thrive at PJA. Thank you for lending them to us for the school year so that we can all enjoy their achievements and take pride in who they are becoming.
Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of attending a Middle School Splash party for 5th and 6th graders here at the campus. It was so energizing to see the students enjoying the inflatable island in the MJCC pool – their exuberance was infectious!
This morning, I had fun watching a group of toddlers at the café window overlooking the pool, keeping an eye on the water aerobics class. It was such fun to see how much some of our youngest “students” enjoyed being part of the fabric of the community – and to imagine that in about 10 years many of them will be attending a Middle School Splash!
One of the joys of being part of the PJA community is the delight of watching so many children who start their education (and fun activities!) here at PJA and at the MJCC as they grow from the toddler program through middle school and beyond. A great vantage point to observe this change in microcosm is the Café at the J, where in the course of one cappuccino it seems that the entire community passes by!
Enjoy the start to springtime that this weekend is predicted to bring!
Welcome back from Passover break, everyone! I hope that you had a restful and rejuvenating vacation.
Just before break began, I was lucky enough to travel to Israel with my family to attend the wedding of the daughter of some close friends. I hadn’t visited Israel in more than a decade and it was great to be back.
I especially enjoyed one evening in Jerusalem when we had dinner with our own three daughters and three friends who had attended PJA. Benjie S. had just come from volunteering at a soup kitchen through his gap year program Kivunim; Shuly W. had spent the morning learning Hebrew in her ulpan (intensive Hebrew language program) and Shoshi F. was excited to be starting a volunteer stint with disabled children and horses through her gap year program, Young Judaea. It was great to see these former PJA students making the world a better place and deepening their own commitment to Israel.
When we returned to Portland, I had the pleasure of visiting the Intel Northwest Science Fair Expo at Portland State as the proud mother of a PJA graduate whose project had qualified from her high school. We were delighted when PJA’s own Joe Minato, who had taught my daughter science five years ago, stopped by to visit!
Together, we also visited PJA’s own Amiel P-H, whose project was on display in the middle school science fair (She did very well! News to follow.).
All of these experiences made me remember what makes PJA so special – dedicated teachers like Joe Minato, and students and graduates who are deeply engaged in the world, learning and working to make the world a better place. It’s an honor and a pleasure for me to be associated with PJA!
This morning I had the pleasure of attending Kabbalat Shabbat with grades TK through 5. It was, as always, a joy to watch the kids – as they leaned forward in their chairs in rapt attention as Merrill Hendin read them a book, as the second graders recited the Shabbat blessings, and as the whole room sang Shalom Aleichem.
Today’s Kabbalat Shabbat was even more special because I realized that at just about the same time -- half way around the world -- PJA’s 8th graders were attending Kabbalat Shabbat in Jerusalem.
What a moving thought – that our youngest and oldest grade school students were performing the same timeless Jewish rituals thousands of miles and many time zones apart.
For me, this is what PJA is about – nurturing our children’s connections to each other, to their heritage and to a worldwide community. What a joy to think that in six short years those second graders leading blessings today in our ballroom will be doing the same thing in Jerusalem!
When I sit in the conference room in the PJA lobby, I can see a slice of Jerusalem through the glass door – just a sliver of the lovely photographic mural that graces our entry. I find myself shifting in my chair to get a better view – to see more of the city.
I find that the same is true when I visit Israel – I always want to see more, do more, stay just one more day to visit a new archaeological site or restaurant or kibbutz. It seems to be in the nature of Israel and the eternal city Jerusalem to leave one thirsting for more.
I hope that our 8th graders, currently in Israel, feel the same way when they are preparing to depart – longing for just one more day, one more site, one more falafel before they go. It’s that sense of longing for the land that they will remember long after the camel rides have faded from memory. That, and the strong sense of connection not only to Israel and her people but also to each other. That’s the magic of the 8th grade trip.
Early Saturday morning a phone call woke me. It was my daughter calling to tell me that Chile had suffered a devastating earthquake. She was worried about our friends there – and so was I.
More than 30 years ago, I spent a year as a high school exchange student in Chile near Santiago. I had kept in touch with my host family since then. We had even hosted one of their grandchildren while she attended a language institute at Lewis and Clark. And my husband and I visited them about 18 months ago when a business trip took him to Chile. Our family’s affection for Chile and our friends there is deep and long-standing and we consider them part of our family.
When I was an exchange student, it was hard to even place an international call to Chile. Now, however, I used all of the modern devices at my disposal. I called cell phones and landlines; I texted, Facebooked, emailed and checked internet resources obsessively, all to no avail.
While I waited all weekend for news of our family and friends there, I thought about how interconnected our world is, and the global perspective our children have. Our kids travel; they speak Spanish and Hebrew and sometimes other languages; they communicate regularly with kids from vastly different cultures and backgrounds. For this generation, the world truly is “flat” in the Thomas Friedman sense. And they themselves have a strong sense of the interconnectedness; of people to people and of people to the environment.
At PJA, our kids learn all of this and more: they forge a special and close relationship with the land and people of Israel. As the 8th grade prepares to leave for Israel on Wednesday, it is a pleasure to feel the excitement in the air – the ruach (spirit) of adventure. Past 8th grade Israel trips have been truly transformative experiences for our children – a fitting culmination to years of study at PJA, deeper friendships with each other, and a strongly forged link to our people’s past, present and future – and I am confident that this year’s class will come back with abiding memories and connections as well.
Late Sunday night came the news I had hoped for – a Facebook message that all of our friends and family in Chile were safe. Some had no water or electricity; others had all of their possessions destroyed; and one house was missing a few walls. But, as our friends said, it was all “cosas materiales” – material things – and not so very important compared to friends and family.
Nesiya tova (good journey) to our students and teachers as they leave for a journey that I am certain will give them an even deeper appreciation for our extended web of family and friends in the land of Israel.
What a great day Grandfriends Day was at PJA! Grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors and special friends all converged on PJA for fun activities, visiting and snacks. Starting with our youngest kids in the morning and finishing up in mid-afternoon after a rousing all-school assembly with performances. It was great to see so many happy faces enjoying their time at PJA.
No event like this takes place without the work of many dedicated people. I want to extend heartfelt thanks to the many PJA staff who made this a special day for so many people. Special thanks also to our middle school students, who escorted visitors to the correct room and made everyone feel welcome.
It was great to see PJA parents and other community members this morning at an event at which Vanessa Van Petten spoke to us about communications between parents and their tweens/teens. We had a great turnout and a lively discussion about how to help our kids – and ourselves!- navigate the thicket of new social media – Facebook, MySpace, Twitter… and whatever is to come in the next generation of social media.
Vanessa is a lively and incredibly well-informed 24 year old whose mission is to connect with tweens/teens and help them and parents communicate more effectively. She’s a spirited and engaging speaker and provided lots of great tips for parents, informed by information she gets from her 82 teen interns, who range in age from 12 to 19. These teens help Vanessa plug into teens’ every day experiences; together, they help to bridge the gap between parents’ and teens’ experiences and perspectives.
Vanessa has a gift not only for helping teens and parents connect but also for creating great metaphors and drawing verbal pictures. Is one of your children perhaps a teacup? (Fragile and a bit too perfect) Or a toastie? (Burnt out from too many activities that suck up energy but don’t generate passion) Or maybe a turtle (getting by with the least amount of work possible)
Vanessa spoke about too many interesting things for me to share them all in one short blog, but a couple of strong themes did emerge from her talk and a later parent discussion moderated by PJA Head of School Mike Tannenbaum. First, it’s important for parents to be well-informed about social media and about what their kids are doing online – and may want to do in the near future. Second, having clear parental expectations and a commitment to monitor kids’ online activities is essential to protecting kids form things that can go wrong in the world of social media and cyberspace. And, perhaps more importantly, having strong family values that we as parents actively reinforce is critical for giving our kids principles and guidance that will underpin not only all they do in the world of social media but also in the broader world as well.
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SCRIP-A-DEE-DOO-DAH
The latest and greatest SCRIP forms are in! Click here to download the latest form. Drop it off at the PJA office or bring it by the SCRIP table on Friday mornings. It's money you need to spend anyway, why not support the school while you're at it? Have SCRIP questions? Pop into the PJA office anytime and get them answered!
