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ISRAEL IN THE GARDENS
The Bay Area Jewish Community will be celebrating Israel's 60th Birthday with a mega-party at the Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco, this Sunday, June 1st, from 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Join the thousands of people from the Jewish community who will attend this annual event.
For those of you that attended SPHDS' Yom Haatzmaut Celebration titled "Srulik@60", it should come as no surprise that our school was chosen to perform at Israel in the Gardens, Israel@60 celebration. SPHDS was one of 5 schools chosen to perform, and as the leading school the judges chose two of our pieces for the performance.
As our 2nd grade class, performing "Eretz Yisrael Sheli Yafa VeGam Porachat," and our 5th and 6th grade classes, performing "Kan Noladeti," take the stage in front of thousands on Sunday, we hope to see the entire SPHDS community, parents and students, cheering our school! We are looking forward to an incredibly exhilarating experience celebrating Israel@60 at Yerba Buena Gardens.
There will be hundreds of booths with Israeli products and foods for everyone to enjoy. In addition there will be music throughout the day, culture, art and dance performances.
Come with your friends and family for this tribute to Israel.
For information about the event, directions and more: www.israelinthegardens.org.
Our school performance was also covered in this week's Jewish bulletin with a special feature on Yom Haatzmaut and Israel in the Gardens. Click here to read the article.
MAZEL TOV
The New York based Kaplun Foundation has an annual international essay contest in which 7th and 8th grade Jewish Day School students participate.
There are only five finalists chosen world-wide and SPHDS 8th grader, Leo Kheyn-Kheyfets, is one of them. Leo will be joining the other finalists and their parents at celebratory dinners, in their honor, in New York City during which the 1st prize winner will be announced.
The question the entrants needed to answer was “Thus far, which of your good deeds are you most proud of and why?”
Leo wrote about acts of chesed (kindness), bikur cholim (visiting the sick) and kibud zekaynim (respect for elders). He related how he helps Russian seniors with reading, translating articles and visiting the sick; and he integrated quotes with sources from the Tanach and the Talmud.
We are very proud of Leo and his caring and helping seniors make their lives more vital. MAZEL TOV, LEO!
IMPORTANT LIBRARY NEWS
As the school year is drawing rapidly to a close we need all library books and library materials returned to the school library by Tuesday, June 3rd. If they are not returned, letters will be sent home to parents notifying them of the “lost” items and what the total replacement costs will be. These bills must be cleared up prior to the end of the school year.
FOOTHILL CENTURY
 We did it!!
It was a great biking day and “luck” was on our side. After one of the hottest weeks in mid-May the weather cooled down to make way for a wonderful day for cycling, community and SPHDS.
At 6:00 a.m., the first cyclist arrived to be greeted by our wonderful staff and volunteers. The cyclists kept coming, 520 strong, from all over the Bay Area including our very own SPHDS parents and students riding the challenging 100k, 50k and 10k routes. With wonderful food served along the routes, followed by a delicious BBQ of grilled chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers and salads– it was all we had hoped to achieve.
In the feedback survey that we received the overwhelming comments were about the friendly and wonderful staff of volunteers, the great ride and the delicious food. As a Jewish organization, what more can we hope for than to achieve the mitzvah of Hachnasat Orchim.
This was also a wonderful fundraiser for the school grossing $46,000. An enormous "Thank You" goes out to all the volunteers, donors, riders and organizers for making this the greatest and most successful Foothill Century...this could not have been achieved without the tireless work of our wonderful volunteers who spent MONTHS planning every detail of this event.
We are truly indebted to our Chair Sherry Solden; the leadership and guidance of Cindy Rogoway and Joe Goldberg; and to Sharon Dwek, our amazing Development Director, who brought everything (and everyone!) together for this fantastic event
So the good news is that this was a wonderful success and everybody had a fabulous time. The bad news is that we have to do this AGAIN...so save the date, SUNDAY MAY 17th, 2009! Don’t say we didn’t give you a heads up!
YOM HA SHOAH
The day after we returned from the Pesach break we, at SPHDS, together with Jews throughout the world marked Yom HaShoah, Holocaust memorial day. On this day we remember the 6 million of our brothers and sisters who died “al Kiddush Hashem” for no other reason than they were Jews. Our senior students, through moving poems and prose brought home the message of Yom HaShoah. Perhaps no other poem so poignantly describes what it meant to be a child in the Holocaust than “The Last Butterfly." Our grateful thanks go to Morah Ilana Kosovsky for organizing this assembly.
YOM HAZIKARON
It was not yet a week and once again we mourned. But this is a different kind of mourning. Yom HaShoah is a blight on the history of mankind. It marks the ultimate in man’s inhumanity to man. Yom HaZikaron is difficult as it commemorates the lives of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the rebirth of the Jewish nation in its homeland. Our thanks go to Morah Michal Kopelman and our senior students for a most moving Yom HaZikaron assembly.
YOM HA’ATZMAUT
This year it was different. This year was 60 years. This year it had to be special. Right from the beginning of the year this was the goal. Let’s make this the most memorable Yom Ha’Atzmaut ever at SPHDS...and we succeeded.
No one who was there will forget the beautiful voices, the feeling of pride and the palpable emotion that permeated the magnificent Macafee Theater in Saratoga on that memorable Wednesday night when we celebrated “Srulik @ 60." The brainchild of Revital of Eilat, "Srulik @ 60" was the opportunity to take a journey through the first 60 years of the State of Israel. A series of snapshots that would be indelibly etched into the mind of every SPHDS student.
This huge undertaking, which involved the entire school from Kindergarten through eighth grade would never have been possible without the blood, sweat and tears of students and faculty. Each and every member of the faculty was involved in some aspect of the production, whether they were in the General Studies, Hebrew or Judaic Studies Departments. Each played a major part in ensuring the success of the production.
But the glue holding it all together, the driving force and human dynamo was the indomitable Etti Tassa. Etti was everywhere all the time, constantly rallying the troops and pushing them El-Al onward and upward. If Etti was the glue and dynamo, then Einat and Natan Grammar were the polish and perfection. Einat is our music teacher and it was her insistence that nothing less than perfection was acceptable – that gave our students the confidence to appear in front of 400 people on a stage that they saw for the first time that evening. And finally, there is Natan Grammar; husband of Einat, chess master, musician and director, who ten days before the performance, in response to an appeal for assistance, made sure that everything ticked; from lights, to music, to stage entrance – it was all Natan. Thank you Natan! By eight o’clock it was all over, but at SPHDS it will always be a night to remember. Please click here to view the video clip on UTube.
GAN AVIV YOM HA’ATZMAUT
 The Gan Aviv outdoor area was decorated with Israeli flags, banners and posters. Each classroom selected an Israeli city or region and created a mural depicting it; the mural was then displayed outside to bring Israel closer to America.
In the MPR, the preschool classes sang Israeli songs, danced with blue and white streamers, Israeli flags, and did a colorful flower dance…and of course, Happy Birthday to Israel was sung.
 
Afterwards, the students celebrated in their classrooms in typical birthday fashion with delicious cupcakes and birthday cakes that they made.
TODAH RABAH
The faculty and staff wish to express their sincere thank you to the Parents' Association for the wonderful, tangible and tasty way in which they expressed their appreciation of the faculty and staff.
PARENTS' ASSOCIATION NEWS
Mazel Tov
Welcome to the new 2008 - 2009 Parents' Association Board!
Co-Presidents: Nancy Gofman and Hagit Gvili
Treasurer: Yaffa Borison
Holidays Co-Chairs: Zina Ioffe and Yehudis Volkov
Board Members at Large: Maryam Zaghi; Joelle Pluemer
Past President: Holly Mendel
Let's give them all the help and support for another terrific year!
We need two more volunteers for the following positions:
1) Izzy's Challah Coordinator. All it takes is 15 minutes a week! Coordinating the challah orders is done mostly from home, on your own time! The school picks up the challot and then the coordinator labels them and puts them out on the table outside the office, on Friday morning.
2) Coffee Coordinator for an hour or so every Tuesday a.m. helps keep your fellow parents well-fed and well-caffeinated. You don't have to be there every Tuesday; you will be in charge of having your fellow parents rotate hospitality turns. Free coffee--what could be better?
To accept either job for next year, please contact Holly Mendel at (408) 245-3144 or Holly@themendels.org.
Save the date!
On Thursday, June 12, the Parents' Association will be sponsoring an after-school ice cream party to celebrate Shavuot, to thank our parent volunteers, and the approaching end of the school year. It will be held at 3:45, right after dismissal, on the school playground. Everyone is invited; please join us!
Challah Orders
The new challah order forms are available; the last order will be for June 13th. If you are interested in ordering click here.
COMMUNITY NEWS
Friendship Circle
The Friendship Circle will be have a Jewish Summer Camp Program for Special Needs children and teens, ages 4 – 11 and ages 12-18, from August 4th – 15th, 9:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. It will be held at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills.
For more information call 650.858.6990, or email info@bayareafc.org. For the website go to www.bayareafc.org. |
