Jerusalem in Winter

25 Tevet, 5775 January 16, 2015

This Week at CJHS

CJHS Community Night

Senior Israel Experience

Driver's Ed

USY News

MLK Service Events

Summer Opportunities

From the PO

Sponsored Breakfast

Alumni Trivia

A Taste of Torah

Save the Date

SUSHI AND SAKE

TOO:

Second Annual Chicagoland Jewish High School

Community Event

Sunday, Jan. 4 - Friday, Jan. 23 Senior Israel Experience Monday, Jan. 19 MLK Day: No School

Monday, Jan. 26 School resumes for seniors Wednesday, Jan. 28 9:45 Start

Sunday, Feb. 8 ACT Monday, Feb. 9 - Wednesday, Feb. 11 Jewish Advocacy Seminar for Juniors

Tuesday, Feb. 10 Curriculum and Beyond Monday, Feb. 16 Presidents' Day: No School

Wednesday, Feb. 25 9:45 Start

CJHS Media

CJHS on Instagram

CJHS Tigers on Instagram

CJHS on Twitter

CJHS Tigers on Twitter

CJHS on Facebook

CJHS Alumni on Facebook

CJHS YouTube Channel

Reconnect with old friends, meet new

ones, and see what's happening in the

halls of CJHS!

Saturday, January 17, 2015

27 Tevet 5775

7:30 p.m.

Suggested Couvert: $50 per person

Senior Israel Experience

more pictures here

The weather in the mountains doesn't look too

different from sweet home Chicago, but our

coats are on and we are a-hikin' as

usual! Neither rain nor snow nor sleet, nor

change of plans nor news from tweets

dampened our spirits as we explored the life

and spirit of Jerusalem. After a beautiful

P.O. Corner

The P.O. is pleased to offer the gift card or "Scrip/Gelt" program, designed to help families earn money to apply towards their students' Shabbatonim, Junior Class trip, and Senior Israel Experience. By purchasing gift cards through the school for vendors where you ordinarily shop

(groceries, gas, household items, etc), a percentage of what you spend each time will be placed in your family's account to be used for these trips. Gift card orders are placed every Thursday. Please contact Sheri Sandrof at ssandrof@cjhs.org or 847.324.3723 with any questions.

Grandparents and Special Friends Association

Help us get in touch with some very special people in your students' lives! Please reply here with the names, addresses, and emails of their grandparents and/or special friends so we can forward them a membership form to join our "Grandparents and Special Friends Organization". If you provide an email address, they can also begin receiving CJHS e-news. Contact Sheri Sandrof at 847.324.3723 or ssandrof@cjhs.org with any questions.

Community News and Events

JNF Tu Bishvat Community Fun Fair

Sunday, February 8 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. 1095 Lake Cook Rd. The annual Chicago TuBishvat Community Celebration will take place on February 8 right here at CJHS!

Shabbat exploring the Old City--and running

into friends and acquaintances in the street in

true Israeli fashion!--we filled the stands at

the Pais Arena to cheer on HaPoel

Yerushalayim in their big game against Galil-

Gilboa. Many thanks to American Jewish

basketball

legend

Tamir

Goodman for

meeting us

in the press

box before

the game--

and for

basketball

practice later

in the

week!--and

to the nice soldiers who also hung around to

chat and answer questions about life in the

IDF. Go Hapoel! We're rooting for you!

Monday was all about community. Schechter

alumni went northwest to Ra'anana to pay a

shiva call to the family of their former Hebrew

teacher Mar Avi Naamat, whose teaching we

remember fondly and whose passing we

mourn.

more pictures here

Shira Forester writes from the bus, "It was a

bit quiet at first, but then we started telling

stories about him, and they told us stories

about him, which went on for about an

hour.... We all told our stories in Hebrew,

because most people in the room knew almost

no English.... We are all so glad we were able

more pictures here

Bring your kids--or your grandkids--to the yearly environmental fun fair for arts and crafts projects, sapling planting, performances by local Jewish choirs and Israeli dance troupes, storytelling for young children, visits with Smokey the Bear and Blue Box Bob, and Israeli food for the whole family.

Younger siblings at Schechter and other Jewish schools can see their paintings displayed and come for the judging of the annual Tu Bishvat art contest! Co-sponsored by the JCC's, the JCYS, and the United States Forest Service.

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. Announcements will be made in Tefillah and in the dining hall, and the occasion will also be listed in our weekly E-News and on the school announcement board. If you have any questions, please call 847.324.3713 or email

to go, because it was so meaningful for us

and also for the family."

Monday was also food pantry day! We worked

the morning

away at

Pantry Packers, the

Jerusalem food bank run

by Tzedakah Central and

Kolel Chabad, has been

distributing food and aid

to residents of our

Jewish homeland since

1788! Would you

believe we filled,

packed, and labelled 720

bags of rice?

The Jerusalem stay

focused on the many faces of Israel. From the

Charedi community in Geulah to the question

of LGBT rights and the fiery opinions on both

sides of the two-state solution, current events

were at the forefront. From Gush Etzion to the

Parents' Circle, we had a lot of food for

thought as we also toured the Jewish quarter

and the Christian quarter of the Old City. Life

as a minority in Israel will be a big part of

next week's theme, too, as the we explore the

streets of Tel Aviv and move north into the

Galil.

Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem from Mr.

Kassner, Ms. Seymour, Rabbi Silver, and all

our seniors! Follow their adventures at

http://seniorisraelexperience.wordpress. com.

more pictures here

Driver's Ed

Freshmen and sophomores! Drivers Ed starts

this coming Thursday, January 22 at 4:10

p.m. For questions, contact Janice Dlatt at

847.470.6700.

USY News

dzidman@cjhs.org. Order forms are available online here.

Quick Links

Our Website

Online Calendar

Trumba Tips

Lunch Menu

2014-2015 Dates

847.470.6700

Congratulations to senior Eli Krule, now the

Israeli Affairs VP of USY International Board!

Only six teens serve as officers from across

North America and over 700 USYers attended

the convention this year. Currently Eli is the

President of CHUSY Region.

Alumni Trivia

Which other USY macher and

staffer is now doing organic

chemistry right near home?

MLK Service Events

Freedom for All: Combating Racism and

Gender Inequality in Dr. King's Legacy

Sunday, January 18

Anshe Emet Synagogue 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Dr. King

famously said

that we must

"Create a place

that is safe for

all of God's

children."

Various faith

organizations

and social justice groups will come together

the Sunday before Martin Luther King Day to

discuss faith, the legacy of Dr. King, and

systematic racism and gender inequality in

our community. We'll talk about what we can

do to remedy these injustices, and we'll

conclude by breaking bread together, as we

reflect on how to create change together and realize Dr. King's dream. Click here for details.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Interfaith

Event

Monday, January 19 at CAIR-Chicago

Offices

17 N. State St., Suite 1500

12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

The world is full of religious based bigotry,

hated and violence. Join us as we honor Dr.

King's dream for a better world by discussing

interfaith solidarity with Jewish, Muslim and

Christian teenagers from across the

Chicagoland area. Teens will then join

together to hand out flyers promoting peace.

Click here for details.

Summer Opportunities for Juniors and Seniors

Tikvah Institute for

High School

Students at Yale June 21 - July 2, 2015

Open to current juniors and seniors, the

Tikvah Summer Institute for High School

Students at Yale University will explore the

biggest questions of meaning and purpose,

war and peace, politics and economics, and

culture and technology. University-style

seminars will be taught by leading academic,

political, and religious scholars. The institute

is fully subsidized by the Tikvah Fund,

including tuition, room and board, books, and

all activities. Apply by February 2. For more

details on course options, click here.

Research Experience

for High Schol and

Undergraduates

"Genes and Addictive

Behavior" is

accepting

applications for

research! Stipends of

$2,000 for high

school students are

available for this

summer. Information

about the program is

at

www.ratgenes.org. Winners will be matched

with faculty researchers and lab associates

from the University of Michigan, University of

Tennessee Health Science Center, University

of Buffalo, and the Medical College of

Wisconsin. Deadline for receipt of application

materials is February 9, 2015. To apply or

read more, click here.

Want to see the parts of our globe that the

tourists never visit? Josh Sadagursky, a rep

from Rustic Pathways, will be visiting on

January 30 during lunch. Go to

http://rusticpathways.com/ for more

information.

Upcoming Events From the P.O.

Tuesday, February 17, at 7:00 p.m.

Join us for our second CJHS PO Book

Discussion

Second Person Singular, by

Sayed Kashua. A Palestinian

who writes in Hebrew, Sayed

Kashua defies classification

and breaks through cultural

barriers. Second Person

Singular is a gripping tale of

love and betrayal, honesty

and artifice, which asks

whether it is possible to truly

reinvent ourselves, to shed

our old skin and start anew.

Wednesday, March 18, doors open at

7:00 p.m.

Join us for a baking

demonstration and

tasting by renowned

cookbook author,

Paula Shoyer. The

author of The Kosher

Baker, The Holiday

Kosher Baker, and

soon to be released

The New Passover Menu, Shoyer will also be

signing her cookbooks available for purchase.

Light refreshments will be served.

Breakfast Correction

Apologies to the Treister family for

misspelling their name in last

week's edition!

Alumni Trivia

Alex Krule ('12) is in his

senior year at

Northwestern studying

chemistry. He will

graduate this spring and

will continue his studies

at Northwestern to earn a

Masters Degree in

Chemistry in 2016. In

addition to his work in the chem lab, where he

worked on finding a molecular basis for

memory, Alex is currently the president of

AEPi at Northwestern and will be traveling to

Poland with his Hillel over spring break with

classmate & friend Lisa Wiznitzer

('12). The past few summers Alex has

worked for USY, staffing USY Eastern Europe

Israel Pilgrimage and USY on Wheels Pacific Northwest. Good for you, Alex!

A Taste of Torah: Va'era

This is the parasha in which God repeatedly

hardens Pharaoh's heart. Traditional commentaries, like ourselves, find this concept extremely problematic. Hardening of the heart should not curtail human independence solely for making one person into an example for the profit of others: even the Pharaoh, depraved as he is, cannot merely be the means to an end.

Addiction is one method by which we can see natural forces hardening a person's heart--that is,

causing them to make the same bad decision over and over again, even against their express wishes to break the pattern. Social conformity is another: many psychology experiments, the Stanford prison experiment most grisly among them, have

demonstrated the unwillingness of a single human

to be the sole voice for reason and rightness in the face of a whole group bent on doing wrong. And yet, both the addict and the wallflower (some might say both the addict and the coward) are expressing their free will.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes, "The conditions of slavery the Israelites experienced in Egypt were often enough felt historically by Egyptians

themselves. The great pyramid of Giza, built more than a thousand years before the exodus, before even the birth of Abraham, reduced much of Egypt to a slave labour colony for twenty years. When life becomes cheap and people are seen as a means not an end, when the worst excesses are excused in the name of tradition and rulers have absolute

power, then conscience is eroded and freedom lost because the culture has created insulated space in which the cry of the oppressed can no longer be heard.

"That is what the Torah means when it says that

God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Enslaving others, Pharaoh himself became enslaved. He became a prisoner of the values he himself had espoused. Freedom in the deepest sense, the freedom to do the right and the good, is not a given. We acquire it, or lose it, gradually. In the end tyrants bring about their own destruction, whereas those with

willpower, courage and the willingness to go against the consensus, acquire a monumental freedom." --Mrs. Shira Eliaser

Shabbat Shalom

Candlelighting this

week is at

4:28. Shabbat

shalom!

ה אחינו ר צ אל, הנתונים ב ר כל בית יש

דים עומ יה, ה בין בים ובין ובשב

קום ירחם עליהם ה, המ ,ביבשה, ומאפל וח ה לר ר בודויוציאם מצ ה, ומשע א בעגלא ה לאור ת לגאלה, הש

ריב .ובזמן ק