Author: Jon Mitzmacher

Dr. Jon Mitzmacher is the Head of the Ottawa Jewish Community School. Jon is studying to be a rabbi at the Academy for Jewish Religion and is on the faculty of the Day School Leadership Training Institute (DSLTI) as a mentor. He was most recently the VP of Innovation for Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools. He is the former Executive Director of the Schechter Day School Network. He is also the former head of the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School, a K-8 Solomon Schechter, located in Jacksonville, FL, and part of the Jacksonville Jewish Center. He was the founding head of the Solomon Schechter Day School of Las Vegas. Jon has worked in all aspects of Jewish Education from camping to congregations and everything in between.

CBB Brings the Ruach to OJCS!

December in Ottawa can be kinda dreary in a good year. The days are short and grey and the weather makes you yearn for a warm blanket and a good book. Add to that the interminable distance from the end of August until the end of December (Expat Alert: That is the real meaning of American Thanksgiving! You deserve a four-day weekend in November!) and you can see why in the best of times teachers and students (and parents) can hit the wall and limp into Winter Break. These are not the “best of times”! These are pandemic times and so that wall is a bit higher and sturdier than normal.

What do you do when your school and your students need a COVID-friendly booster shot of ruach to lift spirits and send us into Chanukah and out to Winter Break with joy and positivity? You turn to a partner with ruach-expertise! This week we were blessed to bring our friends from Camp B’nai Brith of Ottawa (CBB) to facilitate special ruach-filled activities in each of our grades at OJCS.

I’ve written in the past about my experiences and thoughts about Jewish camping and the power of informal/experiential education. I won’t revisit all that ground, but I will say that when it comes to the exponential effect of multiple Jewish experiences (day school+ camp + synagogue + youth group), that…

Most importantly we encourage our students to be their authentic Jewish selves as they carry their experiences from context to context. To me, that’s why experiential education matters. It brings with the promise of making real what, in some cases, can only be simulated or sampled within the walls of a classroom. Those are often the most important experiences of all…

Why is Camp magical? Because it is often the place where children (and adults) feel the safest to be their truest selves. Why is Jewish camp magical? Because it is often the place where children (and adults) feel the safest to be their “authentic Jewish selves”. Why is the combination so powerful? Because what you learn at Jewish day school can be lived in Jewish camp. The education that students at OJCS receive can be powerfully brought to life at CBB (and other camps and at synagogue and at home). And for some of our students (probably the ones who need it most), CBB makes Judaism and being Jewish cool; that may be its most important gift to Jewish continuity.

All of this to say, that this was the week we brought the magic of camp – that special brand of ruach – to our school. It was much-needed and much-appreciated.

This was the schedule:

This is a bit of what it looked like:

You may read and see more about it on our OJCS Student Life Blog. Great thanks to our Student Life Coordinator Deanna Bertrend for putting things together on the OJCS side of things. Great thanks to CBB Associate Director Jill Doctor and Assistant Director Marnie Gontovnik for leading things on the CBB side of things. We look forward to increased collaboration between our communal institutions in the future.

Don’t forget to join us for our very special OJCS (Virtual) Family Chanukah Program on Tuesday, December 15th at 7:00 PM! Our Jewish Studies Faculty has been hard at work putting this together and we don’t only want to celebrate our students and the holiday, but we want to celebrate a rare opportunity during these challenging times to come together as a school community. Get your chanukkiyot, your PTA donuts, and your family together and join us on the Google Live Stream!

A Very Coronavirus Chanukah

This is normally the night where I am pouring through CAT-IV test results, doing some light statistical analysis and writing my annual blog post on our school’s results. This is also the night historically where my primary duties are to be visible and schmoozing with parents as they come and go from Parent-Teacher Conferences. So why is this night different from those other nights?

Wrong holiday, I know.

The very 2020 answer is, of course, COVID. But what I am thinking about tonight is not just what is missing from this silent evening of virtual conferences and untaken standardized tests. I am thinking about the holiday of Chanukah, which begins next week and what can be learned by refracting it through the lens of pandemic.

There is something about Chanukah which is tailor-made for this season. Chanukah is the only Jewish holiday without a sacred text of its own. (There is a Book of Maccabees, but it is part of the Catholic Bible.) Instead of a public reading, we are commanded to bear silent witness to the miracles of the season with a public doing – the lighting of candles in a window.

There’s nothing more COVID-friendly than a ritual that you do in your bubble, but visible to the public through a window! That image – the action of a family candle-lighting silenced behind frozen glass – not only seems apropos of today (my first association is people visiting grandparents from the backyard) but also of Chanukah itself.

Chanukah is a fascinating holiday for many reasons. In large part, the historical story is more of a civil war within Jewish society than a rebellion against a foreign power. The Maccabees were fighting against (at least) two different strata of Jews – the Hellenizing elite and the acquiescing pietists. The former were all too willing to assimilate and the latter believed it was only for God to act in the world. The Maccabees took matters – and the covenant – into their own hands. They were not content to let the world perfect itself; they understood themselves – and humanity – to be partners in the sacred work of repairing the world.

That’s a gross oversimplification, of course, but that idea of striking a balance between not letting the world overwhelm you, and taking appropriate action to perfect it, feels right for a Coronavirus Chanukah. Since the Spring, we have been accustomed to controlling the things we can (hand-washing, masking, social distancing, bubbling, etc.) and forgoing precious, but now risky, experiences. Perhaps as individuals that’s as much as we can do (which is still a lot!). But as a society we aren’t simply content to let the virus do what it’s going to do; we have marshalled resources and expertise to develop therapeutics, vaccines, supply chains and distribution plans. Like the Maccabbees, through human ingenuity and effort, we are active agents in our own salvation.

As we hopefully come through the virus night in the months ahead and begin to enter the vaccine day, let’s hope that by next Chanukah the image of a lit chanukkiah behind a window no longers resonates as COVID-proofing, but as a simple sharing of our collective joy of the holiday.

Finally, this and each Chanukah, let’s not forget our Jewish values of tzedakah (charity) and kehillah (community). Along with your normal gift-giving, consider donating a night or two of your family’s celebration to local healthcare or other essential workers whose light of courage amplifies and enhances this Holiday of Lights.

Chag urim sameach from my family to yours!

A Trip Around the OJCS Blogosphere

With the building largely sealed off due to COVID protocols, our classroom blogs and student blogfolios become even more important virtual windows into the innovative and exciting work happening at OJCS. Recognizing that it still may be a new routine for families and that most families surely don’t have the bandwidth to visit all the blogs, it is my pleasure to serve as your occasional tour guide of The OJCS Blogosphere. I do this a few times a year to inspire OJCS families to invest a little time, to inspire other schools and thought-leaders who may visit my blog from time to time, and to forge connections between our work and other fellow-travelers because we really do “learn better together” [North Star Alert!] This week I will focus on classroom blogs…

From the OJCS (Middle School) Jewish Studies Blog (click here for the full blog)

Grade 8: Virtual Discussion with Tibor Egervari – Posted on November 23rd

Last week the students had the opportunity to engage in a discussion with a Holocaust survivor on Zoom. Our guest speaker, Tibor Egervari, shared his story and explain how he ended up in Canada. Tibor answered a variety of questions and provided the students with his unique insight. Tibor shared his own life lessons and encouraged our students to take a stand when they witness injustice occurring in our world. We are incredibly grateful that Tibor was able to share his perspective with us.

From the Grade Four – Kitah Dalet Blog (click here for the full blog)

It has been a busy few weeks… – Posted on November 11

From starting our new Science unit of ‘Sound’ to the new financial literacy math unit and looking at how maths is used in ‘real-life’, we are keeping ourselves busy and positive!

Check out our (physical distance, of course!) experiment of how sound moves in waves and causes vibrations by making our own Kazoo! I am sure Morah Ana-Lynn and Morah Andrea enjoyed the afternoon music…

Our new Grade 4 Student LOVED the playing in the first snowfall (Dare I tell her just how cold it gets!?)

Here the Grade 4s pose after a game of soccer

From the Kindergarten – Gan Blog (click here for the full blog)

Les voyelles – Posted on October 28

We are learning our French vowels! Throughout the last few weeks, we have read stories about each vowel, created booklets, used Play-Doh to make letters and played a variety of games!

French vowels are difficult because they do not sound the same in French as they do in English. Nonetheless, these kiddos are learning quickly and we have many almost-readers!

From the Grade 1 – Kitah Alef Blog (click here for the full blog)

In Honour of Our Veterans – Posted on November 19

Last week, our Grade 1 students wrote to our veterans to honour them. Please see the email below that Ellie received from the Canadian Legion in Westboro. As always, we couldn’t be prouder of our students.

Good morning Ellie,

Thank you so much for giving Daphne the artwork your students did in honour of our veterans. I put a few of them up on our branch bulletin board, with credit to your school, and Daphne took the rest to give to the veterans, mostly elderly, she visits in her capacity as leader of our Hospital/Home visiting team. We think they will be both pleased and touched.

I was especially moved by this sentence in the message: I love that you saved us.

Remarkable.

I will do a Facebook post in the next couple of days to salute your young students.

Thanks again,
Claudine Wilson
Public Relations Officer
Westboro Legion

Our teachers and students are doing some pretty fantastic things, eh?

I will continue to encourage you to not only check out the blogs on The OJCS Blogosphere, but I strongly encourage you to offer a quality comment of your own. Getting feedback and commentary from the universe is highly motivating and will help this snowball grow as it hurtles down the hill of innovative learning.

For our next tour, I’m going to give you a taste of what is happening with our Grades 4 – 7 student blogfolios. Stay tuned!

Choosing Ottawa Again: Writing My First Second Chapter

Not once in my career have I had the pleasure of welcoming children into school in Kindergarten, watching them grow and mature, creating lasting and meaningful relationships, and then graduating them while shepping naches at what and who they have become.

I have been in the field of Jewish day school since 2005 and the field of Jewish education since 1997. In those 23 years of full-time work, I spent three years at the BJE-LA, three years at the Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation, two years at Sutton Place Synagogue, five years at the Solomon Schechter Day School-Las Vegas (SSDS-LV), four years at the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School (MJGDS), two years at the Schechter Day School Network, one year at Prizmah and I am in my fourth year here at OJCS.

Notice any trends?

I believe deeply in the human need to make meaning through stories and narratives and, thus, have always framed my career (and life) in terms of the chapters I have been able to co-author in the places I have been lucky enough lead. These chapters have had differing lengths and different degrees of consequence, and those two things are not always so aligned. I was the founding head of the SSDS-LV (z”l). That was pretty significant for both me and the school. My time at MJGDS was an extraordinary time of innovation and change -again both for me and the school. I was the first – and last – director of an independent Schechter Day School Network (also z”l). I was part of an amazing team of colleagues who helped birth Prizmah. The work we are presently doing at OJCS in my first chapter here has been well-chronicled in this blog and thanks to an extraordinary team has exceeded all expectations.

The last time I wrote a “life transition” post, I had described my career as a series of “happy accidents” and I still stand by it, at least broadly speaking. There is a lot of luck that goes into building a career. There is also a lot of risk. I have been fortunate that throughout most of my career, the choices have been mine to make and that when choices needed to be made, wonderful choices were available to choose. That isn’t always true in this profession and timing is everything. But to describe my career as a series of “accidents” is also a bit of a dodge. It absolves me of the choices that I did in fact make along the way and the impact of those choices on the schools/organizations and communities that I left behind, not to mention on my wife and children.

This career didn’t just happen to me. I largely made it happen and I am responsible for all the good, all the regret, all the accomplishments, all the unmet and unfulfilled expectations, all the extraordinary relationships, all the hurt feelings, and so on. And that’s just the professional impact. My children have had to move schools and start over more than once. My wife has had to reestablish herself in school after school, and here in Ottawa to reinvent herself altogether.

Why have I never stayed long enough to write even a second chapter?

Ego, ambition and wanderlust.

There is value in having an ego and ambition. They drive you towards achievement and success. They require you to learn lots and to work hard. And to be clear, I don’t begrudge anyone – including myself – for having ambition. When success begets success and that next bigger or more complex opportunity arises, there is nothing wrong with going for it. However, ego and ambition can also be dangerous, especially when they become ends and not means. If you are constantly looking towards the next shiny thing, it makes it really hard to appreciate and enjoy what you presently have. Ego also cuts both way. It is not a sign of stable ego if you are easily seduced by every new opportunity; it is the opposite. It is a fragile ego that needs to feel important and who reduces success to simple metrics (How big is the school? How prominent? How large the salary?). It is also a sign of a fragile ego to put your professional ambition ahead of your family’s quality of life. I have been that guy. I have chased the ring. I have picked up the phone. I have asked my family to sacrifice their peace of mind on the altar of my ambition.

I am also someone who is attracted to the unique challenges of the start-up or the fixer-up, which also explains my career trajectory. I have only really ever worked in places that were starting up or starting over. I thrive in bringing order to chaos. I do less well when order starts to take shape. The simple truth is that I love to write first chapters. That’s where a lot of the action takes place and the stories start to take shape.

But I am not the person I was five, ten and fifteen years ago. What matters to me most and the kind of stories I want to write have (finally) evolved. And so today, I am thrilled to share with you that after having worked with my board these last few months, that we have chosen here – the Ottawa Jewish Community School, the Ottawa Jewish Community and Ottawa itself – to finally write that second chapter. For reasons related to my housing situation – and because round numbers are awesome – we will be tearing up the fifth and final year of my current contract and will replace it with a new contract that will keep us here at least five more years.

Why now and why here?

I can give all kinds of personal and family reasons. My wife and children deserve some stability after 7 moves in 20 years. My daughters deserve an opportunity to go through adolescence without the added stress of reinvention. We believe that Ottawa (and Canada) is an ideal place to raise teenage girls in what is already a complicated and sometimes dangerous world. We have found a neighborhood and support system that facilitates our observant Jewish lifestyle. We think it will be wonderful for our children (and us) to eventually become dual citizens and for our children to have all the added opportunities (affordable and excellent universities!) that come with it. We are still just beginning to get to know this city, province and country, but from what we have experienced thus far we feel comfortable and safe and happy here. For those reasons alone, why wouldn’t we want to stay?

But please don’t think that I am simply settling. Just because there are compelling personal reasons to stay doesn’t mean that professionally I am simply content to settle. I may be slightly more mature, but I still carry lots of ambition. This is not simply a personal decision; this is a business decision as well.

Professionally, I am as happy as I ever have been. There were lots of challenges behind us and lots of challenges ahead of us (no chance of getting bored here!). If my first chapter was about helping guide the school from a state of emergency to a state of stability, the next chapter will be about moving from stability to sustainability. Please don’t think that my ambition about what can be true in Jewish day school has been lowered. I still believe that Jewish day schools are/can/should be leading the educational (r)evolution and I know that OJCS is on the vanguard. Our goal here at OJCS is to be the best school and even if we have not achieved it yet, we are definitely on our way.

I am blessed to work with a talented and growing administrative team, a gifted and dedicated teaching faculty, a strategic and nurturing board, supportive and committed donors, collaborative and creative institutional colleagues and a Jewish Federation that works hard to ensure that no one is left off the Jewish Superhighway. Are there bigger and more prominent schools and Jewish communities? Yes. Are there schools with more resources? Yes. Does that mean that OJCS cannot become an innovative leader amongst Jewish day schools or Ottawan private schools? Absolutely not. The future of education is being written right here. I am humbled to know that I will have a continuing hand in its authorship.

In the end, when faced with having to make a choice, the choice was clear.

I choose family. I choose community. I choose unlimited possibilities. I choose innovation and excellence. I choose the Jewish future. I choose this school with these administrators and these teachers and these families and this board and these donors and these volunteers and this Jewish community. I choose this time and this place to write a first second chapter.

I choose Ottawa.

And Now For Something Completely Different: Annual BlogCloud

Normally I save this annual exercise in running my blog through a word cloud app or website until the end of November. When I was living in the States, it was because of the short week of Thanksgiving. When I moved to Canada, it was because of my FOMO on American Thanksgiving (and because if you commit to writing a weekly blog post, they ain’t all going to be masterpieces.) This year, however, considering my state of mind as an expat living through the ongoing federal election in the USA, I’m physically and emotionally exhausted! So rather than wait a few more weeks, this seems like the perfect week (for me) to turn away from cable news and the constant refreshing of political websites, and return to a tried and true friend.

If you missed last year’s punny post…

I genuinely do enjoy this annual exercise in “word-clouding”. If you are unfamiliar with the idea, in a nutshell, word clouds (through an algorithm only they know) take any piece of written text and represents it graphically in a way which highlights frequently-used words. It is a fantastic device for visually summarizing the essence of a written text. Another great feature is that, not only can you cut-and-paste in any written document, you can type in blogs, websites, etc., and it will go back and search them for content, add it all up, and spit out a word cloud representing the sum of all its written content.

This is my fourth such annual post here at OJCS and I have done them each, as stated above, in November. So, what does this year’s BlogCloud look like and what does it reveal? [If it is too small on your screen/device you can go ahead and zoom in. Or just scroll up!]

I just put last and this years’ butterflies side-by-side to do a little comparison. “Jewish”, “Teachers”, and “Students” are about the same size, but “Parents” is much smaller this year. My only thought is that I spent so much time in March-April-May-June writing blog-length emails to parents that, perhaps, I didn’t feel the need to duplicate in this blog. I surely don’t believe it is an intentional de-emphasis. “Community”, “Learning” and “Time” continue to hold strong and I think it is interesting that “time” has so much focus. Time really is one of the critical variables in learning and how we choose to use it has tremendous impact on teaching and learning. “COVID” and “Coronavirus” make their obvious debuts.

What words would you have expected to see? What words are you disappointed to see?

If you see something interesting in my OJCS BlogCloud, let me know in the comments!

Expat Files: Do Civics & Civility Begin At School?

Canada’s last federal election was just about a year ago (October 21, 2019) and as the head of a Canadian Jewish Day School – located in the federal capital no less – I have exactly no vivid memories of the election.

It isn’t that I don’t remember the run up, or the campaigns, or that there weren’t lots of spirited workplace conversation. It isn’t that I don’t remember the election itself or the results or that people didn’t have feelings or opinions about the outcome. All of those things happened. But I cannot identify any specific moment or memory that stands out as noteworthy.

I was the head of an American Jewish Day School in 2008 (Las Vegas) and in 2012 (Jacksonville). [In 2016, I was working for Prizmah.] I have clear and distinct memories of both, and here I mean in terms of my normal workaday life in schools, not in my overall awareness. I remember fraught and painful conversations as both faculty and parent communities tried to reconcile strong partisan feelings (and sometimes rancor) with our work to create safe, nurturing, inclusive school communities that were supposed to foster critical thinking skills. The day after those elections were either funerals or celebrations depending on which team you were on. You could see the secret high-fives and commiserating glances up and down the hallways.

I don’t recall a single parent last year expressing a concern about how we were teaching or talking about the election. Our Grade 8s had opportunity to meet with candidates and parties by virtue of our geography and I don’t recall a single parent asking that their child not be exposed to that person or that party. In 2008, Senator Joe Lieberman (who at that point in his career was a John McCain surrogate) came to visit our tiny school in Las Vegas. Let’s just say that people (including my father z”l) had feelings. When Barack Obama became President and wanted to offer anodyne greetings as part of a “back to school” message, not only did we have to secure permission slips, we had families insist that their children be pulled out of class so as not to hear it. In 2012, the most beloved teacher (Judy Reppert, z”l) in our school was bombarded with questions and criticisms as she tried to navigate “current events”. When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to our Jewish Community Campus in 2018 for a Rosh Hashanah program, it raised exactly no eyebrows as community leaders – some of whom strongly oppose his politics – welcomed him and happily posed for selfies (guilty!).

PM Justin Trudeau Visits Ottawa Jewish Community Campus, 2018

Why? Why this stark disparity in both civics and civility? It is very tempting to be reductive (Canada, Good; America, Bad), but I neither feel that way nor is it true. Political scientists will rightfully point to differing founding narratives, a huge disparity in homogeneity, surprisingly (to an uneducated American) different political systems, among other explanations. But I am a school-person – my expertise is in education and my milieu are schools. And so let me humbly suggest perhaps that civics and civility begin at school…

An illustration…

…I am usually the first person to arrive at school each day, after the security guards. More often than not, I come in to find our two security guards engaged in high-level political discourse, not only about local and national politics, but about American and world politics. They are well-read and well-informed. I would wager that these two Canadian security guards know way more about American politics than any two average Americans. I cannot be more clear that this is not a backhanded compliment or a knock on “security guards”. What it is, is an indictment of civic engagement and information literacy in the States.

Our responsibility as schools seem simple, straightforward and entirely non-controversial. We should educate our students as to how our political system works. We should teach them the history of national politics. We should instill in them the desire to participate fully in the political process and to proudly exercise their right to vote. We should encourage them to seek truth so that their beliefs and attitudes about how government should work (one of the definitions of “politics“) are rooted in objective reality. They should learn to be respectful of differing opinions and to always keep an open mind. And they should honour the office regardless of who holds it.

The most difficult trend in political discourse (particularly in the States), which impacts our ability to help students “seek truth,” is the seeming inability to agree on an objective truth – about just about anything. This is particularly challenging in schools where the ability to develop critical thinking skills is amongst our highest responsibilities. Facts are facts and opinions are opinions. Or at least they used to be.

As facts themselves have been called into question, politicized, and debated, it makes it more challenging for schools to play their proper roles. We want to provide students with the tools and skills they need to discern truth from fiction, fact from opinion. Armed with facts, they can then form informed opinions. When we cannot collectively point to a fact and call it a “fact” any hope for intelligent debate fades away. What is a school (or society) to do?

Teach, that’s what.

We lean into civic engagement and information literacy. Here, in our nation’s capital, we are blessed to have lots of opportunity to connect our school and students to the political process. Our teachers (primarily, but not exclusively, in Social Studies) take this work seriously. It is not extracurricular; it is curricular. We are also blessed here with a wonderful librarian who has serious information literacy chops. Brigitte Ruel has the best OJCS blog that you are not reading often enough. Our students are provided with the tools they need to determine what is and what is not a credible source, how to be a “fact finder” in a time of misinformation, and how be an ace fact-checker. And those are just examples…

Civility is not merely a concept, but a value, and one that schools should be able to model as well as teach. We certainly do our best here. Elections are an exciting time to be a citizen. As Jewish day schools, they are powerful opportunities to demonstrate how to have complicated and important conversations in accord with our highest values. All we can do is our best. We try to live up to our ideals. We teach facts. We provide respectful space for opinions. We encourage civic participation.

We witness history and celebrate the miracle of democracy.

Ken y’hi ratzon.

The Coronavirus Diaries: Preparing the Pivot

This blog post is not intended to indicate any inside information about impending school closures! I know no more than anyone else about how long we will be blessed with in-person learning at OJCS. Despite all the challenges – the daily stressors on families when symptoms and exposures occur, the life juggling required to accomodate unplanned learning from home and the extraordinary responsibility our teachers have assumed with grace and care to provide seamless hyflex learning – we are doing remarkably well! I can’t visit classrooms like I used to, but from what I can see with my own eyes or on a screen, we are delivering on our promise.

Part of what happens at the beginning of each year at OJCS, is that I meet with each teacher to develop an individualized Professional Growth Plan (PGP) for the year. We believe deeply in lifelong learning and our teachers all establish growth goals to help them be the best teachers they can be. Through those conversations, we have come to believe that one thing we can be doing now – ahead of any pivot to distance learning should it come – is to role-play distance learning here in school. We didn’t have any time last year to experience distance learning from the back-end (what does it look like from the student’s perspective?) or to do specific skill-building or troubleshooting, especially at the youngest grades. We are encouraging all our teachers to take the time now, while we have it, to dedicate a period, a block, a half-day or even a full day to role-play “Distance Learning in Grade X”. Let’s have the teacher teach from his or her device while students learn from theirs. Let’s have the teacher create asynchronous lessons that students should (even in K) be able to navigate without (or with limited) parent support and see what happens.

What does this mean for me now?

Great question! Not much. You may wish to pay attention to how and when your child(ren)’s teacher(s) schedule these simulated days. If your child is in Grades K-3, you may see a request from teachers that those students who do have access to devices (tablets or laptops) begin to bring them to school (if you are comfortable). Whereas we are BYODevice in Grades 4-8, we rely on the school’s iPads in Grades K-3. Although we are looking to add to our current supply, if you have a device that your child in Grades K-3 would likely be using in the case of a pivot, you may wish to send it for these scheduled practices.

Besides access to devices, how else are teachers preparing for the pivot?

We are seeing a direct result of the learning teachers did during our Pre-Planning Week and an increase in successful asynchronous and hyflex learning. Please revisit this post to see why and how your child(ren)’s teacher(s) are beginning to embrace platforms like Classkick and Nearpod.

How else can we – as parents – prepare for the pivot?

Another excellent question! Here, I would advise you to revisit this post from last spring that clarified home expectations. Our goal is NOT to provide materials for homeschooling! Our goal is to allow high-quality, rigourous, OJCS learning to happen at home.

We don’t know if and when this is coming, but we do know that we want to be as prepared as we can. If we do these things now when we have ample opportunity to correct, adjust and adapt, it will make any kind of pivot that much more seamless and successful.

If you were playing the COVID “pivot” drinking game, please find a comfortable place to rest for the rest of the day!

This is normally the time of year where I post an update of our school’s philosophy with regard to standardized testing as we prepare to take this year’s exam. This was the year that we were scheduled to pilot the CAT-5 (we have been taking the CAT-4) and to again expand the grades who take it. The eventual goal is for each grade to take this exam each year so that we have the most actionable data. This year, however, the CAT-5 will not roll out due to COVID and most private schools have decided to pause standardized testing. We, too, shall pause although I would have loved to see the data. Our theory of the case is that we did not see too much slippage last spring because of our response. I would love to see if the data bore that out, but even figuring out the logistics of proctoring these exams in compliance with safety protocols is not a good use of our resources. We look forward to resuming standardized testing in 2020-2021.

OJCS Launches “Life & Legacy Circle”

It feels like a million years ago, I know, but it was only last February that we announced that our school would join fourteen other local Jewish organizations in a commitment to work together to support the future of the Ottawa Jewish Community. Under the leadership of the Ottawa Jewish Community Foundation (OJCF), our community is in its second year delivering and implementing the Harold Grinspoon Foundation (HGF)’s “Life & Legacy” initiative.

We had only just begun our work when it – and the world – was interrupted by COVID-19. If you want a quick refresher on the big idea, please watch this very short and excellent video produced by OJCF:

We feel passionately at OJCS that our value proposition could not be more clear – or more needed – than now. In these uncertain times, the stability, excellence and innovation of our program; and the love, care and talent of our teachers are critical to the present and the future of not just the OJCS community, but the Ottawa Jewish Community. Investing in Jewish school is investing in Jewish community. The future leaders of this community are being developed within our walls – and for our virtuals learners on our screens – just as the current generation of leaders were. A legacy gift to OJCS ensures a legacy of Jewish continuity for Ottawa – for your children, their children and future generations of children to come.

As the work of educating our community to the need, the value, and the ease of legacy giving, we are thrilled that we already have a number of families who have stepped forward to make their intent known. We want to acknowledge and thank the first members of the OJCS Life & Legacy Circle:

Thank you, merci, and תודה רבה Life & Legacy Circle Members

Jessica Greenberg
Rabbi Eytan Kenter & Staci Zemlak-Kenter
Richard Roth and Dr. Riva Levitan
Ian and Estelle Melzer
Jeff and Rhoda Miller
Lisa and Mitch Miller
Dr. Jon and Jaimee Mitzmacher
Ilana Albert-Novick and Mitchell Novick
Joel Sachs
Lorne Segal
Fred Seller and Stacey Steinman

What do all the above have in common? NOTHING! That’s the point; other than a deep connection to OJCS, this list has all kinds of ages and income levels. Every family can leave a legacy and secure the future. Trust me, I’m on that list and I can assure you that you don’t need an estate or a measure of wealth to ensure the future of organizations that you care about. But don’t take it from me, here is what another member of the Circle shared with us:

OJCS (aka Hillel Academy) has been a part of my life from as far back as I can remember. My spouse and I have included OJCS in our Life and Legacy plans because we want to ensure that Jewish education is a strong and thriving part of the Ottawa community now and long into the future.

As we look to grow our Circle, let’s end with another “circle” through the famous story of Honi ha-M’agel or Honi the Circle Drawer:

One day Honi was journeying on the road and he saw a man planting a carob tree. He asked, “How long does it take [for this tree] to bear fruit?” The man replied: “Seventy years.” Honi then further asked him: “Are you certain that you will live another seventy years?” The man replied: “I found [already grown] carob trees in the world; as my forefathers planted those for me so I too plant these for my children.”

Want to come plant with us? You are invited to a special OJCS-OJCF (say that 5 times fast!) Virtual Parlour Meeting on Sunday, October 25th at 7:30 PM hosted by Roz and Steven Fremeth! To get the link or to ask any Life & Legacy questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Staci Zemlak-Kenter, our Director of Development, at [email protected], or 613.722.0020 x 378.

Expat Files: Why Don’t We Make Hand Turkeys?

I distinctly recall during my first year here in Canada, as the calendar moved into October, being excited to celebrate my first Thanksgiving in Canada – or as we call it in the States, “Canadian Thanksgiving”. I kept waiting for the teachers in the youngest grades to start teaching the (Canadian) Thanksgiving story, primarily so I could learn it, and for the school to start to fill with hand-turkeys and whatever the equivalent of Pilgrim hats and Native American headdresses would be.

Nope!

Depending on who I spoke with and what their understanding was, I learned two things pretty early:

Canadian Thanksgiving ain’t American Thanksgiving.
Jews don’t really do Canadian Thanksgiving.

Now neither is technically nor universally true. There is a LOT that is the same between how Thanksgiving came to be in both places and what traditions have built up around them. You have an origin story centered around a ship’s arrival to a new land. You have a deep connection to the harvest. You even have football (if you want to call the CFL “football)! For my American friends who want a primer on competing Thanksgivings, this is my recommendation.

And there are Jews who celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada (and not just American expats who do it November)! However, it does play out differently here. Some say it is because it so much closer to the Jewish High Holidays and Sukkot that the big ideas – harvest, family and gratitude – have already been addressed and so there isn’t a need to do it all over again so soon. (Sometimes it falls during the Jewish holidays.) Some say that it – in Canada – had or has Christian overtones that make it feel less comfortable for Jews to fully embrace. But there are plenty of Jewish families in Canada who will do up the whole thing. For my American friends who want a primer on why Jews are less likely to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving, this is my recommendation.

More important than of this, of course, is the opportunity that Thanksgiving grants me to write a blog post of gratitude. (When you commit to writing a weekly post, you have to take your inspiration when it comes.) I focus my energy around Rosh Hashanah to do a bit of annual reflection. I focus my energy around Yom Kippur to lean into forgiveness. I focus my energy around Sukkot to encourage new practices and traditions. Starting now, I think it will be my tradition – my way of connecting to Thanksgiving in Canada – to have an annual opportunity to focus my energy on gratitude. (That way, I can still make the focus of American Thanksgiving – which my family still celebrates – on overeating and overwatching football.)

What I am grateful for this Thanksgiving:

I never get political in my blog, but I don’t think it will make huge waves to say that I am very grateful that we are living here in Canada during this most interesting of times on our continent.
I am grateful for the technology that keeps me connected to friends and family. Living through a pandemic 20 years ago would be unimaginable without FaceTime and Zoom and Google Meet. That we get to “see” parents and grandparents across closed borders and thousands of miles is truly a modern-day miracle.
I am eternally grateful to have a wife, Jaimee, whose Type A/perfectionist mothering and wife-ing creates so much space for me to dedicate my time and energy to my work and my passion.
I am thankful to have landed in a Jewish community that is extraordinarily capable and generous; a community that is committed to its future by its support for Jewish day school.
I am grateful to have landed in a Jewish day school that is full of committed, talented, caring, innovating and hardworking teachers. A school is only as good as its teachers and we have a pretty great school!

I could go on, of course, but let me just say that I am also grateful to anyone and everyone who has ever read, shared, or commented on one of my 350+ blog posts over the years. You often wonder/worry that you are speaking into the wind, but every now and again someone takes the time to let you know that they are, in fact, paying attention. And that always feels great.

Feel free to share what you are grateful for in the comments or, more importantly, with friends and family. Happy Thanksgiving!

Marching With Fruits & Vegetables (The COVID 5781 Remix)

I am not going to lie. (I mean, we just came out of Yom Kippur!) As much as I was able to find workarounds for a joyful Rosh HaShanah, and as much as I secretly enjoyed (that’s probably not the exact right word) Yom Kippur from home, I am already devastated by what will be a very different kind of Sukkot.

If you read my annual Sukkot post (or ever read it just once), you know that Sukkot is absolutely my favorite holiday of the entire year. There is nothing else like it on the Jewish Calendar – sitting outside in a sukkah you built yourself (which is pretty much the one and only thing I actually can and do build), with handmade decorations from your children (or their childhood), enjoying good food with friends and family in the night air, the citrusy smell of etrog lingering and mixing with verdant lulav – this is experiential Judaism at its finest.

COVID has not entirely rendered this part of the holiday moot. We did build a sukkah and it has all those visuals, smells and tastes. It remains an incredibly tactile holiday, which normally adds to its allure. But this year, of course, is complicated. Our inability to physically come together in close proximity makes it hard to invite guests into our (however porous) sukkot. It definitely makes sharing a lulav & etrog more complicated as well. (Do they make disinfectant for produce?) And even though I focus (in my posts) more on Sukkot than on Simchat Torah (which here in the Diaspora comes immediately afterwards), thereto, singing and dancing with the Torah will rightfully be verboten in 5781.

The calendar is also weird, right? I cannot recall a time where we have been in school for all five days of Chol Ha’moed (the Intermediate Days of) Sukkot. We both have the most time we have ever had to celebrate this time of great rejoicing and the least opportunity to actually do so!

We are still looking forward to celebrating this holiday at school. [By the way, it seems like whenever we discuss the timing of the fall Jewish holidays relative to the start of the school year, we always describe them as coming “early” or “late”. They don’t ever seem to come “on time”!] Great thanks to Morah Ruthie and all our Jewish Studies Faculty on their planning of COVID-friendly Sukkot activities that will be done in our cohorts during Jewish Studies time. We will do our best and even if it isn’t all that we would normally do, it will be what we can do.

It is the second half of this annual post that I am less capable and comfortable writing this year. Here is where I try to gently point out that if you had to pick just one (you don’t!) Jewish holiday for your children to experience on the Jewish Calendar, you would probably be well served choosing Sukkot (or Simchat Torah or Pesach or Shavuot) and not Yom Kippur. Or as I ask it each year, “When building your child’s library of Jewish memories, which memory feels more compelling and likely to resonate over time – sitting in starched clothes in sanctuary seats or relaxing with friends and family in an outdoor sukkah built with love and care?”

I know that I know what I think the answer is to that question, but part of why I ask it each year is that I don’t see that answer reflected in behavior. Meaning, the answer – to me – is obviously Sukkot, but Yom Kippur still wins out. (Again, you don’t have to pick just one.) The reason why I think that is true remains a fundamental lack of adult education (does everyone know how to celebrate Sukkot?) and of partnership (will someone help me learn how to celebrate Sukkot or help facilitate a Sukkot experience?). And my normal response to that is to offer up the school and its resources to be that partner in both education and experience. And in a pre-COVID world maybe that is as good as it can be…

This year, of course, is that different world. Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, for many, if not most, were virtual or blended experiences. There were newfound frustrations in relying on technology or missed opportunities for the gathering of friends and family. There were newfound joys in creating new traditions and gatherings or including friends and families who live far away and who in a normal year would be missed. I know what worked well for me and my family and what didn’t, and I imagine that you do as well. And as I said above, for me it is Sukkot and Simchat Torah that is really going to feel less-than.

In the spirit of trying to turn etrogs into etrog-ade, for those for whom Sukkot’s exotic traditions create an annual barrier for participation, let me invite you to think of this year as an opportunity to pick one new tradition and experiment with in the comfort and (likely) seclusion of your sukkah or home. Shake a lulav and etrog. Eat in the sukkah (or in something sukkah-adjacent). Zoom a service. Dance with the Torah like nobody’s watching because nobody will be watching.

Let’s not let this holiday season end with self-denial and forgiveness – as important and meaningful as those things are. Let’s end with joy. From my family to yours: Chag sameach!