Model UN Does It Again! - Rochelle Zell Jewish High School

March 15, 2013 / 4 Nissan 5773
Model U.N. Does It Again!
In This Issue
Model U.N. Lands on Its Feet
Model U.N.
The CJ Factor
Spring Training
Math Team
Pi Day
DECA Guest Speaker
Blood Drive
CJHS Meets CJDS
Alumni in the News
Chametz Drive
Commnuity Film
Screening
Save the Date: Wagner
Institute
Neither snow nor rain
Library News
STAND UPdate
Alumni Trivia
A Taste of Torah
Save the Date
Sunday, March 17
Spring Musical Revue
Monday, March 25
Pesach Break Begins
nor sleet nor bungled trains nor gloom of cancelled flights
prevented our Model U.N. team from outdoing itself at this
year's New York summit. A total of 45 countries were
represented at the conference, including over 300
individual schools and a record-breaking 3,100 students
from all over the world-among whom we were
delighted to meet our Italian
counterparts from a Jewish
day school in Rome!
For the second year running,
the CJHS team tied several
much larger schools for
Monday, April 8
second place in overall excellence! This victory is a
School resumes
testament to the rave reviews written by the many M.U.N.
staffers as they individually rated the performance of each
Sunday, April 14
committee member. Five of our students were honored to
ACT
serve on specialized agencies: Avidan Halivni and
Charlotte Kamin on the Security Council considering the
Sunday, April 21 situation in the Sudan, Elan Sykes and Dana Levin on
Monday, April 22
the Historic Security
Wagner Institute
Council re-visiting the
crisis in the Suez, and
Friday, April 26
Adam Taitz on
No School
MONUSCO, whose
focus was resolving
the Hutu-Tutsi
violence in the Eastern
P. O. Corner
Congo. On those
committees, Elan
Gelt Program
Sykes, Dana Levin,
and Adam Taitz won
The P.O. is pleased to once again
separate Awards of Distinction! Moreover, Sarah Levin,
introduce the gift card "Gelt
program" to our families and we Ruli-Warner Rosen, Hillel Schwartz, Joe Cohen, Josh
have made it much easier (look
Flink, and Rachel Small were all invited to present their
for upcoming email with details
respective committee's resolutions at the Plenary session:
on how to register). Faculty and
a tremendous honor!
staff can also buy Gelt that will
help to support programs
provided for the school by the
P.O. This program is designed to
help families earn money toward
their children's junior year Panim
program and/or the Senior Israel
Experience. The program is a
passive earning system, in which
you buy the things you ordinarily
purchase anyway, and earn
money which will be credited to
your family for designated school
trips. If you have any questions,
contact Sheri Sandrof at
[email protected] or call her at
847.324.3723.
Community News
and Events
USCJ Annual Benefit
Concert
A Celebration of Our Youth:
An Evening of Musical
Entertainment
Sunday, March 17, 2013
7:00 p.m.
North Suburban Synagogue Beth
El
1175 Sheridan Rd., Highland
Park, IL
This concert honors Chuck
Kahalnik and our Regional
Youth Commission Leaders and
features the music of Sheldon
Low. Click here to become a
sponsor or to purchase tickets.
JUF Annual Jewish Day
School Night
We are pleased to invite you to
JUF's Annual Day School Night:
Tuesday, April 9
7:15 p.m.
Holiday Inn North Shore
5300 Touhy Ave., Skokie
"How to Communicate With
To say our team did well is an understatement: they
worked as a seamless team under the most stressful and
challenging conditions, distinguishing themselves with
creativity, diligence, patience, fortitude, and extraordinary
eloquence. We salute all 27 of our returning diplomats,
each of whom performed with distinction as they expanded
their knowledge of international relations. Read all about it
in the Deerfield Patch, or watch the full honors video
clips at http://cjhsmun.blogspot.com.
Your Children Without Losing
Your Hair or Your Mind!"
The event is free to participants,
and it is a wonderful opportunity
to show our support for JUF,
mingle with other committed
leaders, professionals and
parents of the day school
community, and listen to an
interesting speaker. Michael
Brandwein, writer and presenter
of the Emmy award-winning
television programs Parenting
Puzzle, will be the featured
speaker.
CJHS announces The CJ Factor, at 7:00 p.m., Sunday,
March 17, at the historic Skokie Theatre at 7924 Lincoln
Avenue in Skokie. Our amazing cast utilizes spoken word,
dance, poetry, vocal artistry and mastery of individual
musical instruments to shine for this one-evening event;
and tickets are only $10! Once you see and hear it, you'll
know what that special something that our students
possess is - what we call the CJ Factor! Tickets are limited
- contact www.gorillatango.com to reserve your seat now!
Spring Training Begins
Arizona is for wimps; real men warm up
their pitching arms on the half-frozen
American Friends of
tundra of Goodman Field right here at
Israeli War Disabled
CJHS! In a truly historic moment, the longPresents...
awaited CJHS baseball team took to the
"Everything Is Illuminated"
field last week for its first organizing
meeting and practice sessions. Team leaders
Sunday, March 17
include Aaron Drexler, Larry Bender, and Isaac
2:00 p.m.
Johnston; Isaac reports, "We are planning on having a
Noyes Cultural Center
927 Noyes Street, Evanston
club team this year with a couple practices per week and
3-4 games. Mr. Gleicher will be the head coach with
assistance from pitching coach Mr. Danko and assistant
The Next Theater Company's
upcoming production is Jonathan coach Rabbi Robkin. CJHS baseball is still undefeated!"
Safran Foer's
Everything is Illuminated,
adapted for the stage by Simon
Block. It chronicles a young
Jewish man's journey as he
struggles to unlock the secrets of
his past. It follows the quirky
journey of Jonathan scouring the
rural Ukraine landscape in the
search of a woman who may
have saved his grandfather from
the Nazis, accompanied by an old
man haunted by memories of the
war, an amorous and excitable
dog named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr.,
and an irreverent translator with
a unique grasp of the English
language
Look both ways before crossing the hallway after school:
you might get run over by a streak of Tigers! That
thundering sound of running feet you hear is the women's
soccer team, on the move and training hard. They're not
a bit put off by their first two games of the season being
snowed out, and they're looking forward to taking on Our
Lady of Tepeyac and Woodlands Academy next week.
Math Team Concludes Winter Season
A chilly breeze blew through the
wind tunnel as the CJHS
mathletes boarded the bus for
their final competition of the
Join us at 1:00 p.m. before the
year. The math team concluded
show for an hour of light
refreshment and camaraderie at its inaugural season in the North
the Noyes Cultural Center in the Suburban Math League (NSML)
studio right next door to the
this Wednesday at the 2012-13
theater entrance. The
Conference Meet at Evanston
play begins at 2:00 p.m.
Advance copies of the script will
Township High School. Over 50 local high schools were
be available and we are invited
represented at the meet. Team member Maya Behn
to a special post-show discussion
reports that CJHS continues to lead in points per capita for
with members of the cast and
all mathletes across the North Shore; congratulations to
artistic team.
Benji Fishbaum for earning a perfect score in the Senior
Competition! Congratuations to all the mathletes for their
The cost for this wonderful
effort and dedication to making this a successful first
afternoon is only $36.00 per
person. Make your checks out to season in the NSML, and to our stalwart coaches Dr. Yuen,
AFIWDF. Contact Esther
Ms. Charous, Ms. Gitlin, and Mr. Baumstark.
Calamaro at 847.679.4199 or
[email protected].
Pi Day
Sharia and Halakha in
America
April 15-16
* Presented by Chicago-Kent
Law School, and the JewishMuslim Initiative at the
University of Illinois-Chicago
* Coordinators include CJ parent
Mark Rosen of Chicago-Kent Law
School and board member Prof.
Sam Fleischacker at UIC
Islamic religious law - shari'a has come under fierce attack in
recent years, as a system that
threatens American
freedoms. More quietly, there
has been an attempt in San
Francisco to ban circumcision, a
ritual central to both Jewish and
Muslim law; bans on both Jewish
and Muslim modes of
slaughtering animals have been
enacted in a number of European
countries. Indisputably,
prejudice and hatred have played
a large role in motivating these
developments, but they have
also raised some deep questions
about how liberal democracies
can and should accommodate
legal systems. This conference
will explore these questions, as
they pertain to both shari'a and
Jewish law (halacha), from a
variety of angles. It will address
the challenges faced by both
Jewish and Muslim legal systems,
and invite people from the two
traditions to learn from one
another's experience.
Many thanks to Mike
Byster, the human
calculator, for coming in to
entertain our school for Pi
Day! Mr. Byster was able
to solve in only a few
seconds the most
complicated math problems
our mathletes could invent
for him, zipped around the
calendar identifying days of
the week for any date that
we could throw at him,
and even showed our
students his "Brainetics"
memory approach for how
to rack up these
calculations faster than
even reaching for your cell
phone's calculator. It's
Sessions on Monday, April 15 will amazing what the human
be held in Room 580, Chicagobrain can do! And thanks to the math department, as
Kent Law School; sessions on
always, for the pies.
Tuesday, April 16th will be held
in the Institute for the
Humanities, Stevenson Hall,
University of Illinois-Chicago. All
sessions will be open to the
DECA Guest Speaker
public, and the conference will
run from 9 to 6 on the 15th and
from 9 to 4 on April 16. To
register, and for more
information, click here.
Sponsor Breakfast
What's better than a birthday
celebration with
friends? Celebrate your
student's birthday or other
milestone with a special
breakfast at CJHS.
For a donation of
$180 (10x chai),
bagels, cream
cheese, and orange
juice will be served
to everyone. An announcement
will be made in Tefillah and
in the dining hall, and the
occasion will also be listed in our
weekly E-News.
Marvin Lutz, a high-yield bond portfolio manager at
Allstate Investments, is joining DECA, our business and
finance club, on Wednesday, March 20, during lunch. He
will be leading a discussion on institutional investment
management, with a particular focus in his area of
expertise, which is high yield bonds. After a brief open Q &
A session, Mr. Lutz will present promptly at 11:52 p.m.
and take 15 more minutes of questions at the end. Join us
in room 311 for a very informative session!
Blood Drive
The Va'ad is hosting a Blood Drive on Monday, March 18,
from 11:45-4:00 p.m., in Room 244. Students and staff
age 16 and older can drop by and help save a life
someday! To sign up, contact Josh Silverman. If you
donate blood, you will also receive lots of snacks and a
free t-shirt. And who doesn't love free t-shirts?
CJHS Meets CJDS
If you have any questions, please
call 847.324.3713 or email
[email protected]. Order
forms are available online here.
Quick Links
Our
Website
Online Calendar
Trumba
Calendar Tips
Last Friday, the CJHS vocal ensemble gave its annual preShabbat concert for the Chicago Jewish Day School. Becca
Abrams, Elizabeth Barras, Gabi
Pretekin, Talia Canter, Sarah Comar,
2012-2013 Year
Jonathan Tupper, Orli Schlessinger,
Calendar
Matthew Dulberg, Eleanor Dunietz,
Remy Kaskel, Hana Lieber, Rachel
Rubinstein, and Arielle Kaye
performed a selection of hymns and
Lunch Menu
zemirot, plus a selection of Broadway
songs from our upcoming show, The CJ
Factor! It's always great to get together with our day
Join the Tiger
school buddies in the city!
Club
Colleges Take Note of CJHS
While visits from college representatives primarily occur in
the fall, several are visiting this spring. First time visitors
include Tel Aviv University and the U.S. Military Academy
(West Point) who were here this week. A representative
from the University of California at San Diego will visit
CJHS on Wednesday, March 20, and Wake Forest
University will visit on April 15.
Alumni Trivia
CJHS students continue to make
headlines! Which of our recent
graduates was interviewed on Israel's
Channel 1 Yoman last month?
Chametz Drive
We only have one more week before spring break,
meaning that Pesach is only a week and a half away! As
you're cleaning your house of all Chametz, make sure to
donate your nonperishable Chametz (and various other
nonperishable food products) to DRIVES, which is
collecting food for the Chicago Food Depository. The
collection ends next Friday, March 22.
Film Screening: Race to Nowhere
SSDS and CJHS invite you to join us for a community
screening and discussion of the award-winning
documentary Race to Nowhere: Leveraging the Power of
Community to Transform Education, right here at CJHS.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
7:00 p.m.
There will be a discussion with Solomon Schechter and
CJHS educators following the film. Tickets are $10/person
at the door. For more information or to RSVP, contact Jodi
Morady at [email protected] or Melissa
Spellman [email protected].
Save the Date: Wagner Institute
"Creating a Just Society"
The Isidor and Rose Wagner Institute for Leadership
Development of
The Jewish Theological Seminary
in partnership with Chicagoland Jewish High School
Featuring JTS Chancellor Arnold M. Eisen
Sunday, April 21 - Monday, April 22
Library News
The library is pleased to showcase the new
Passover display! We have an eclectic number
of titles including The Passover Saga: Myth or
History?, The Interlinear Haggadah, And You
Thought There Were Only Four: 400 Questions
to Make Your Seder Enlightening, Educational and
Enjoyable, and The Art of Jewish Living: The Passover
Seder. Thanks to Ms. Snyder whose colorful graphics
adorn the display.
STAND UPdate
STAND secretary Yadid Licht reports, "This past week,
the activist organization, United to End Genocide, created
BashirWatch, a global network of citizens who will pressure
governments to uphold their obligation to arrest President
Omar al-Bashir. Omar al-Bashir is responsible for the
genocide in the Darfur region of what is now South Sudan
that occurred from 2003-2009, and continues to use
similar tactics of direct ground attacks, aerial bombing,
and blocking of humanitarian aid to displaced civilians in
the Blue Nile and South Kordofan regions. Although the
ICC has issued a warrant for his arrest for war crimes and
crimes against humanity, Bashir has yet to be tried by the
International Criminal Court (ICC) due to the lack of
political will of the members of the United Nations Security
Council and the countries that are members of the ICC.
BashirWatch will pressure policymakers, government
representatives, and court officials to support the ICC's
warrant for Bashir, bring him into custody, and transfer
him to the International Criminal Court for trial. United to
End Genocide hopes that through their efforts, they will
create justice in the world, and will send a message to all
other oppressors that justice will catch up with them."
Alumni Trivia
Yoman Special Feature: Women of the Wall Special feature on Israel Channel 1
Noah Weinberg ('12) is one of the men on the ground
interviewed in Channel 1 Israel's special program last
month on religion and the state. Check out his thoughtful
remarks at the 5:30 mark. Noah is spending the year in
Israel studying on Kivunim.
Correction: Aliza Shapiro from last week's article
graduated in 2010, not 2011. E-News apologizes for the
error.
Sponsored Breakfast
Happy birthday to Linzy Upton-Spatz. Many thanks to
her family for sponsoring bagels.
A Taste of Torah: Vaykira
Our Rabbis teach us that the first thing that we are to teach our
children is the Book of Vayikra, the various details of our laws,
the cultic system which stood as the basis for how we related to
God. We read in midrash Vayikra Rabbah, in fact, that this
decision has a form-follows-function pedagogic approach: "God
says since the sacrifices are pure and the children are pure, let
the pure ones come and study what is pure" (Vayikra Rabbah
7:3).
During the first half of Sh'mot, we have soaring oratory, miracles
of so many kinds - a burning bush, ten plagues, the splitting of
the Sea of Reeds. Yet the essence of our lives is not found in the
book of Sh'mot.
Life is lived in the status quo, in the every day. And it is the book
of Vayikra that gives us a narrative structure for how we navigate
our time "in-between," giving sanctity to the mundane.
The sacrifices that appear throughout this parasha are precisely
the communal structure that can serve as a model for us today,
as Chancellor Arnold Eisen of JTS discusses:
"Such pleasures of the everyday, for all the routine trouble and
inevitable dullness intermixed with them, and the many evils that
continue in the world, likewise visible every day, enable one to
say, 'Dayyenu. It is enough for us' Attentive to the foreground,
part of a community which shares it, we know what it is to want
only more of the same, and have a sense of what it might mean
to live inside a sacred order. If I only had the world, I too would
sing the praises of this everyday mightily and would not
contradict those who discern in it, with keener vision than I
possess, the activities of the Most High" (Eisen, Taking Hold of
Torah, 106-7).
We teach our children the laws of Vayikra first, it seems, because
these details are precisely the essence of life. It is my blessing
that we will be intentional about our sanctification of everyday
moments, providing communal structures and opportunities to
serve God, just as our people did in their enactments of
sacrifices.
--Rav Beit Sefer Zachary Silver
Shabbat Shalom
Candlelighting will be at 6:39 p.m. Shabbat shalom!