Hearing the panicked responses from day school advocates around the country to the notion of Hebrew charter schools puts me in mind of watching a zoning board hearing where, in their zeal to stop virtually any new project before it starts, neighbors stop up their ears lest they hear of potential benefits.
The Wall Street Journal recently published a column about ultra-Orthodox (Charedi) Jews in Israel who do not work for a living. Sixty-five percent of ultra-Orthodox men ages 35-54 do not go to work. Instead, they study Torah while demanding increasing amounts of money from the taxes paid by Israelis who work for a living. The author of the column, Evan R. Goldstein, wrote: “Voluntary unemployment has become the dominant lifestyle choice for [Charedi] men. And even if there was a desire to work, [Charedi] schools leave students unprepared to function in a modern economy.”
As the director of academic and college guidance at YULA Girls High School, Jessica Pashkow has been helping this year’s seniors and their parents through the college application process for the better part of the past year. And with deadlines looming in the coming weeks and months, essays are at the forefront of many of the students’ minds. The dreaded personal statement: Students have just 500 words, sometimes 1,000, to stand out among thousands — often tens of thousands — of applicants. And when it comes to Pashkow’s students, based on their experiences alone, it can be hard to distinguish them from one another.
The leaders of six educational institutions accused of using fake identification cards to cheat the government of millions of shekels have been arrested.
The University of Vermont removed final exams scheduled for Saturday from next year\’s calendar, but left exams for this year on Shabbat.\n
Ask anyone who knew him: Daniel Pearl loved music. He joined bands in Atlanta, Paris and Mumbai, relishing the way a good melody can draw people together.
Not every American summer camp can claim to have helped smuggle arms to freedom fighters.
A Northridge Jewish day school teacher has received a $5,000 grant from former talk-show host Jenny Jones to create an 80-foot-long mural along the Los Angeles River as part of a beautification project.
After a successful launch in the San Fernando Valley, PJ Library has expanded into city ZIP codes, signing up 700 new kids over the past two months.
The timing might be a little off this year — with Chanukah so early in December — but organizers of the annual Chanukah Camp at Camp Max Straus in Glendale are not deterred. Chanukah camp packs a week’s worth of camp fun — campfires, hikes, sports, drama, arts and crafts, social service projects — into the first week of winter break, Dec. 19-23. And although Chanukah’s last night is Dec. 8, all of these activities will revolve around a Chanukah theme, including a concert, carnival and latke making.
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