Havdalah and Siddur Ceremony

This week we had three great ceremonies. Our Kitah Bet (2nd grade) had their Havdalah Ceremony, Kitah Gimmel (3rd grade) received their first siddur during the Siddur Ceremony and tonight we are confirming 17 tenth graders in a special Friday night which includes presentations, Shabbat service and dinner.

I love the end of the year when we are able to display and honor all the great learning our students have accomplished!!

Here are a few highlights, see many more pictures on Flicker. Confirmation picutres will go up early next week.

Families and Students at our Siddur Ceremony

Kitah Gimmel receives their Siddurim

Kitah Bet Havdalah Ceremony

Kitah Bet did an awesome job!

Youth Groups

This week BAUSY, B'nai Amoona's chapter of United Synagogue Youth elected their 2011-2012 leadership board. 

BAUSY is one of our three award winning youth groups. B’nai Amoona youth groups are a wonderful opportunity for our child to hang out with their B’nai Amoona friends, participate in fun activities and live Jewish values. We have three wonderful youth groups. Atid Amoona is for students entering 4^th & 5^th grade and meets approximately monthly. Kadima meets monthly for our 6^th-8^th graders. USY for our 9^th -12^th graders has a variety of weekly events, Shabbat experiences and weekend regional conventions.

This past year we had some exciting new programs, such as the overnight at the zoo, traditional favorites such as USY Shabbat dinners, and record attendanceat our Atid Amoon and Kadima events.

Come join the bunch – it’s a fun and important part of our Jewish education.

Mazel Tov!

 

Pesach 5771

Here we are, days before Passover. Everyone doing the mad dash to buy Passover food and clean out our homes. When was the last time that you cleaned out your closets or took all the books off the bookshelves to wipe them down? And in fact, how does all that dirt find its way under all those books? I think we all have a love/hate relationship with this time of year. There never seems to be enough time to get it all done. I could live without the allergy attacks from all the dust. And I certainly do not enjoy cleaning out my oven, in fact if it weren't for passover, I wonder if I would ever do it. However, I do love once Passover comes and I walk into a super clean and minimalist kitchen. I love having only 2 cups and 2 bowls to wash and I enjoy empty counter tops. I actually even enjoy the change in food. It reminds me how we can live our lives more simply, how we can do with less and still be happy.

I wish you and your family a wonderful Passover this year.

Here is some information that might be helpful:

                            

April 17               No Pardes, Passover Preparation Time

April 18                First Passover Seder

April 19               No Pardes, Second Passover Seder                      

April 24               Pardes has classes

April 26               No Pardes, Passover

April 26               Passover ends at 8:18pm – go eat some carbs!

Do you have Last Minute Pesach Questions? Need to know what time you have to stop eating bagels? Are you looking for the form to sell your Chametz? Don’t know if your natural unprocessed Peanut Butter is okay to eat? For answers to all your questions, go to https://www.bnaiamoona.com/files/final_passover_packet.pdf



B'nai Mitzvah Family Workshops

During 6th grade, the pre-B'nai Mitzvah year, all of our families, both day school and religious school, join together for at least six family workshops to learn about various important subjects such as T'fillin, Tallit, and having an Aliyah. They create a vision board of what they want their B'nai Mitzvah experience to look like and mean to their family. This year we added in three additional oppertunitites to study text with Rabbi Rose. Sunday, we had our final workshop of the year, Tallit making. This is always a favorite. After spending time studying about the mitzvah of Tallit with Rabbi Rose, our families each made a personalized tallit for their upcoming Bar/Bat Mitzvah.

The class will be displaying their new Tallitot during services on May 21st. I hope you will come and share in the experience as our 2011-2012 B'nai Mitzvah class begins to experience the mitzvah of putting on a Tallit.

Confirmation Trip to Washington DC

On Thursday, March 24th, thirteen 10th graders, Jennifer Newfeld, Andy Schwebel, and Ari Kaimen descended on Washington DC for four incredible days of bonding, learning and experiencing. We visited the Newseum, saw an exhibit called, "Choosing to Participate" which looked at moments in history where individuals or groups choose to participate and the difference they made, hung out in Georgetown, visited GW Hillel and met Jewish college students, walked a lot, rode the subway, bonded as a group, celebrated two birthdays, prayed as a community, visited a Conservative synagogue, listened to head of the Public Relations Team for the Clinton Administration and the next nominated U.S.ambassador to Israel, worked with the JCC on homeless issues, visited the Capital, Monuments, White House and the Smithsonians.

We did a TON in four days, and it was an incredible experience.  Some of the best parts were....

• "The Holocaust Museum really opened my eyes."
• "Doing Havdalah outside the Kennedy Center as one group together really made me feel like we were one big family."
• "I really enjoyed the Kabalat Shabbat service at Hillel because everyone was there because they wanted to be."
• "The best part of the trip was experiencing DC while at the same time getting to know my classmates."
• "Walking to Shul in the morning with Rabbi Ari which mixed our Judaism with a walking tour of the streets of D.C."

Purim

Purim was awesome at Pardes this year. We had Circus Harmony, Sushan celebrations, lots of Megillah reading, all sorts of costumes, thundersticks,  hamantashen and lots and lots of smiles. We boo-ed Haman, gave away a bike and ate tons of sugar. Hope you had fun with us!

 

Check out the great pictures to the right.(Click on the thumbnail photos to see more)

Sherut Luemi

Once a month our "Israeli girls" come to Pardes and spend the morning bringing Israel to our K-5th grade students. Sara and Tova are spending one year of their Israeli National Service living in St Louis and working in Jewish education, connecting students to Israel. Tova and Sara always bring a fun and educational activity to our students. Last month they made Chocolate Balls, an Israeli cooking classic and this month, while teaching about water issues Israel faces they had our students acting out the story of Honi Hamagel (Honi the circle maker) in Hebrew and playing a water relay game. Our students really enjoy the Sundays when a little bit of Israel visits them.