February 8, 2013 – Montreal

The Hebrew Academy High School has won the regional semi-finals of the Shalheveth Freier 2013 Physics Tournament, taking home the prize for a zombie-themed safe-locking device based on physics principles. ‘The Walking Dead’ winning team of Dan Cohen, Adam Edery, Charlie Friedman, Brandon Goldberg and Michael Wolman as well as their coach, Dr. Laura Segall will be going to Rehovot, Israel to compete in the two-day International round of the competition on March 12th and 13th. The Eastern regional semi-finals of the 18th annual Shalheveth Freier Physics Tournament were held at Bialik High School on February 6, 2013 and included the participation of Hebrew Academy High School (boys and girls teams), Bialik High School, St. George’s High School and The Study. The tournament is coordinated by the Weizmann Canada. It is named for the late Israeli science ambassador, Mr. Shalhevet Freier. The Hebrew Academy boys team will be joined by the Western regional semi-finals winning team from Tanenbaum CHAT Kimel in Israel. Travel expenses and accommodations are generously subsidized by some Weizmann Canada donors.

 

The Challenge:

Teams are asked to build a safe that only they can open. Each team must use simple materials to build a lock that operates on the principles of physics, able to be opened in less than five minutes, but that will keep opponents stumped for a minimum of 10 minutes. They must demonstrate an understanding of the scientific basis of their locking mechanism, and must display originality, ingenuity and elegance in their physics riddle. During the competition, teams must attempt to open the safes of all the other teams. They get added points for every safe they manage to crack. Judging the competition in Montreal was Dr. Victoria Kaspi, McGill University Physics Department Professor and Prof. Robert Rutledge, McGill University Physics Department Associate Professor.

 

About Hebrew Academy:

Hebrew Academy provides children with a rigorous educational curriculum focused on a combined program of Judaic and secular studies. It fosters academic excellence, an intellectual curiosity and a love of learning while also inspiring leadership and community involvement allowing students to reach their full academic and religious potential.

 

About Weizmann Canada:

Weizmann Canada is part of the international community of supporting organizations for the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovot, Israel, where 2700 scientists, technicians and students are working on over 1200 research projects to help solve humanity’s greatest challenges. Weizmann Canada is committed to contributing to the continued success of the Institute, by engaging a national community of individuals, families, foundations, and businesses who all share a common vision of advancing science for the benefit of humanity; through educational programs, events, and philanthropic endeavours.

Initiated from a generous donation by the Hebrew Academy Parents Association (HAPA), the plans for the new retaining wall blossomed into a full fledged renovation of the upper and lower wing of the school. Children are now able to exercise and play in a safe and modern environment.

The School began a “Campaign for Excellence” fundraising initiative which helped subsidize the renovation and ensure the maintenance for the future. Donations from parents, grandparents and supporters were raised from private get-togethers, a direct mail campaign and personal face to face solicitations.

A fun-filled event organized by HAPA Presidents, Laurence Cohen and Alex Benchaya, featured face-painting, pizza and ice cream and gave the students their first opportunity to run, play and experience their new surroundings.

Elly Miller, Hebrew Academy President, thanked dedicated volunteers, Shlomo Drazin, Karl and Vanessa Fallenbaum, Jordana Levy, Chaya Lieberman, David Tordjman along with Executive Director, Linda Lehrer and Development Director, Carolyn Steinman for their tireless efforts on behalf of the school.

For more information, please contact Carolyn Steinman at (514) 489-5321 ext. 353.

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The magnificent Olympia Theatre on Ste. Catherine St. announced the evening’s performance on its marquee, and the 900-plus spectators were treated to a magical evening of amazing music, choreography, costumes and visual effects.

Following the success of Hebrew Academy’s production of Le Roi Lion last year, teachers and students in grades 1 through 5 – all of whom performed in the play – were eager for the curtain to rise once again.

Presented in collaboration with the Hebrew Academy Parent Association (HAPA), the production was part of the school’s French and music curricula and represented a culmination of eight months of preparation and about 200 hours of rehearsals.

“We strive to enrich the lives of our students through living experiences that will have a lifelong impact on every child,” said elementary-school principal Rabbi Yamin Benarroch.

“It’s not enough to just open a book and study the text,” added vice-principal Shauna Joyce. “Our teachers strive to bring the text to life by applying it to students’ daily lives.”

The grand end-of-year performance was the brainchild of Jean Fiset, Hebrew Academy’s music teacher, who served as Le Prince d’Egypte’s musical director. In addition to leading the choir arrangements, teaching students to play the recorder for one of the scenes and accompanying them on piano during the show, Fiset also wowed the audience with a show-stopping solo.

Fiset co-produced the show with French-department co-ordinator Miriam Schrager and teachers Myriam Bouhadana and Shirly Amsellem. Parent volunteers and staff from every Hebrew Academy department, including information technology and physical education, designed costumes and sets, created video streams and choreographed dances.

“Le Prince d’Egypte was truly a collaborative effort involving Hebrew Academy administration, staff and parents at all levels,” said HAPA chair Jordana Levy. “They are all to be commended for working together in a harmonious fashion and for leveraging their respective skills in the interest of the play.

“There’s no doubt that the positive energy throughout the process and the rewarding end result greatly fuelled school spirit not only for the adults but for the children as well.”

For Schrager, the performance represented a chance to nurture students’ talents and skills while fostering a greater appreciation for the French language.

“Through an enjoyable and animated activity such as this, our students develop their artistic abilities, creative potentials, confidence as performers and their aptitudes to express themselves and communicate,” she said.

“Their involvement in the play also solidifies their French-language skills through reading, learning and memory, and work with speech, diction and pronunciation. The production of a show allows students to build a new relationship with the French language. It no longer represents a second or foreign language, or complex concept full of rules and exceptions.”

For Hebrew Academy alumnus Barrie Steckler, who came to watch his son, Jaime, perform, the play was “absolutely unbelievable. I find the kids to be incredible,” he said.

Highlights of the show included a circus act in which students twirled ropes attached to iridescent balls that glowed in the dark (a performance art called poi) and a stirring rendition of When You Believe, the Academy Award-winning song featured in the 1998 animated movie The Prince of Egypt.

Reproduced from: Canadian Jewish News
http://www.cjnews.com/jewish-learning/prince-not-just-another-school-play

Except for the fact that it was held on Montreal’s Sainte-Catherine Street, Hebrew Academy Elementary School’s recent performance of Le Prince D’Egypte had all the makings of a Broadway show.From the venue of the magnificent Olympia Theatre with its marquee announcing the evening’s performance, to the music, choreography, costumes and visual effects, the 900-plus spectators in attendance were treated to a magical evening.

Following the spectacular success of Hebrew Academy’s first-class production of Le Roi Lion in 2011, teachers and students in Grades 1 through 5 – all of whom performed in the play – were eager for the curtain to rise once again. Presented in collaboration with the Hebrew Academy Parent Association (HAPA), the production was part of the school’s French and Music curricula and represented a culmination of eight months of preparation and about 200 hours of group rehearsals.

“We strive to enrich the lives of our students through living experiences that will have a lifelong impact on every child,” said Elementary Principal Rabbi Yamin Benarroch. “It’s not enough to just open a book and study the text,” said Elementary Vice Principal Shauna Joyce.  “Our teachers strive to bring the text to life by applying it to students’ daily lives.”

The grand end-of-the-year performance was the brainchild of Jean Fiset, Hebrew Academy’s music teacher, who served as Le Prince D’Egypte’s musical director. In addition to leading the choir arrangements, teaching students to play the recorder for one of the scenes and accompanying them on piano during the show, Fiset also wowed the audience with a show-stopping solo.

While Fiset co-produced the show with French Department Coordinator Miriam Schrager and teachers Myriam Bouhadana and Shirly Amsellem, parent volunteers and staff from every department including IT and Phys-Ed played a significant role in making the evening a success – designing everything from magnificent costumes and sets, to video streams and choreographed dances.

“Le Prince d’Egypte was truly a collaborative effort involving Hebrew Academy administration, staff and parents at all levels,” said HAPA Chairwoman Jordana Levy. “They are all to be commended for working together in a harmonious fashion and for leveraging their respective skills in the interest of the play. There’s no doubt that the positive energy throughout the process and the rewarding end result greatly fuelled school spirit not only for the adults but for the children as well.”

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A chance to shine

For Miriam Schrager, the performance represented a chance to nurture students’ talents and skills while fostering a greater appreciation for the French language. “Through an enjoyable and animated activity such as this, our students develop their artistic abilities, creative potentials, confidence as performers and their aptitudes to express themselves and communicate. Their involvement in the play also solidifies their French language skills through reading, learning and memory and work with speech, diction and pronunciation. The production of a show allows students to build a new relationship with the French language. It no longer represents a second or foreign language, or complex concept full of rules and exceptions,” said Schrager.

For Hebrew Academy alumnus Barrie Steckler who came to watch his son Jaime perform, the play was “absolutely unbelievable. I find the kids to be incredible,” said Steckler. “Some of the kids are natural born actors; some may even have a future on Broadway. My son is in Grade 1 and he was very excited about it. He was talking about it for a very long time. The people who worked on the play did a very good job. They worked really hard.”

Highlights of the show included a Cirque-du-Soleil-calibre act in which students twirled ropes attached to iridescent balls that glowed in the dark (called poi – a performance art), and performers’ stirring rendition of When You Believe, the classic song featured in the 1998 animated movie, The Prince of Egypt.

“We are speechless,” said Phyllis Spinner, who came to the play with her extended family to see grandson Meir Blanshay perform. “I think Hebrew Academy should do this permanently. Forget everything else – just go into theatre!”

Rav Amar also recounted a story he had read as a young boy about a man who openly wondered why Am Yisrael is consistently persecuted if we are “The Chosen People.” As Rav Amar noted, “Am Yisrael is precious, despite us being small in number. Is there more gold or are there more diamonds in the world?” he asked. “And what do people want? They want diamonds – because diamonds are rare. We are all diamonds. You, the students, are all diamonds. You are all loved by Hashem.”

Rav Amar praised HebrewAcademy students and their parents for their commitment to Jewish education, Torah study, Kashrut and Tzniyut. He then led everyone present in meaningful Tfillot on behalf of the State of Israel and the welfare of Chayalei Tzahal.

“It was fun meeting the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel,” said Grade 6 student Yoni Mydlarski. “It was an honour that he came to our school. I thought it was very interesting when he spoke about his childhood and the book he read, Zohar HaTorah.”

Rav Amar was born in 1948 in Casablanca. He made Aliyah in 1962 and became the first sole Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv 40 years later. Prior to his appointment as the Rishon L’Tziyon, Rav Amar served as the head of the  Petach Tikvah Beit Din.

Also competing in the tournament were Yossi Saleh, who played in the singles division, and Adam Ziri, Benji Dahan, Jacob Israel and David Dayan, who played as doubles. Congratulations to our Midget boys, who won Hebrew Academy the silver medal in the team competition! We look forward to next year, when they will defend their title in the GMAA’s Juvenile division.

For the first time, Hebrew Academy entered a Bantam team in the GMAA tennis tournament. A very-talented Noah Oiknine competed against older boys in Grade 8, and held his own winning 5-0 in the preliminaries! Also on the team were Benji Friedman, competing in the singles division, and Ryan Schwartz, Samy Marciano, Ben Lieber and Barouch Benaim, who played as doubles.

Yasher Koach to all our supreme athletes!

Noah Cohen and his coach Ora Rubenstien

We are proud of our students’ wonderful performance in both the 2011 and 2012 finals of the Chidon HaTanach! This year, 24 of our students represented us in the National Chidon HaTanach finals in Toronto, and eight of them ranked in the Top 10!

Mazel tov to Grade 10 student Charlie Friedman whowas crowned the ninth most knowledgeable high school student in Tanach in the entire world at the recent 2011 International Chidon HaTanach finals in Jerusalem.

Having placed third in Canada in this year’s national competition, Grade 9 student Noah Cohen will follow in Charlie’s footsteps next year! Mazel Tov and Hazlachah Rabbah!

Kol Hakavod to the following students who also ranked in the National Top 10 in all of Canada:

High School Junior (Grades 7/8) Division:

Benjamin Azerad, Mattitya Loran,  Eliana Rohr and Yehonatan Haimovici.  Yehonatan won  second place in all of Canada.

Elementary Divison:  Gaby Mamane – 1^st place

Andrew Miller, Amichai Lion, Nataniel Ouazana – 3^rd

Yasher Koach to the following  students who participated enthusiastically in the Chidon:

Noam Azerad, Sarah Azoulay, Joshua Bendayan, Nathan Benizri, Leah Bessner, Yehuda Bessner, Sam Drazin, Kyle Fallenbaum, , Meir Hersson-Edery, Maayan Levy,  Yosef-Chaim Rouimi, Arielle Rohr, David Somech and Matan Tordjman.

Our sincerest thanks to coaches Ora Rubenstein, Vicky Szyf, Barbara Freedman, and Warren and Sari Rohr, for their dedication and support!

Welcome to Hebrew Academy!

Allow me to share a story with you. Recently I offered a ride to an alumnus who had graduated several years ago. He is currently a successful student in university majoring in Business. Attempting to make smalltalk I asked, “How is school?”

“OK,” he responded. Knowing he had spent a year in Israel after high school, I asked, “Do you miss Israel?” To which he responded meekly, “Yes, I guess so.” After a moments pause, and with strong emotion he then added, “What I really miss is Hebrew Academy!” “What do you miss?” I asked. “When you were here you couldn’t wait to graduate!”   To which he responded, “At Hebrew Academy I knew that the teachers cared about me. I was more than a Student ID number. That’s what I miss. I miss feeling important to someone!”

I can write about our academic accomplishments. The success of our alumni.  The fact that year after year we receive the highest level of accreditation.  I can quote our test scores and how every Yeshiva or seminary that comes to recruit begs us to send them our students. However, what makes Hebrew Academy great?

“At Hebrew Academy I knew that the teachers cared about me!”

Those eleven words contain the beauty and the richness of a Hebrew Academy education. This is what Hebrew Academy is all about.

Our website is the portal to accessing information about all of the areas of school life. We hope you enjoy it and visit often. However as the Talmud states, “אינו דומה שמיעה לראיה” – There is no comparison between hearing about something (and in this case reading about something) and the real thing. With this in mind please feel free to call us and schedule a visit. I promise you, you will not regret it. Allow us to show you our science labs where our two physics teams are preparing projects to compete in a regional physics tournament. Or we can visit the Lieberman Beit Midrash where over 200 students visit weekly to study extra Torah on their own time! Finally we can stop by our gym where we host the Oren Grunbaum international basketball tournament each year.

Have I whet your appetite?

Thank you for taking the time to visit our website.  I personally look forward to welcoming you at Hebrew Academy where you will see first-hand how we educate the mind, body and the neshama!

Sincerely,

Rabbi Boruch Perton
Educational Director
boruch.perton@ha-mtl.org

Mazel Tov, Aryeh! Yasher Koach on a job well done!

Following is a transcript of Aryeh’s  winning speech:

Excellence is Not a Skill – It’s an Attitude

An American company and a Japanese company decided to have a competitive boat race on a river. Both teams trained in order to reach their peak performance.  At the end of the race, the Japanese team won by one mile. Discouraged by their loss, the American team’s corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat must be found.

They concluded that the Japanese team had eight people rowing the boat and one person steering, whereby the American team had eight people steering and just one person rowing. To prevent losing to the Japanese again, the American Team’s management structure was totally reorganized to three Executive Steering Directors, three Senior Steering Managers, and two Steering Supervisors. A new incentive system was established for the person rowing the boat, to give him empowerment and motivation.

The following year the Japanese team won by ten miles. Humiliated, the American corporation cut costs by laying off the rower, selling all equipment, and cancelling all capital investments on their new canoe. They gave a “Superior Performance” award to the rower, and distributed the money saved as bonuses to the senior executives. Shortly thereafter, they filed for bankruptcy.

Do you think that if a company wants their employees to have a natural incentive to solve problems, the solution is to optimize and restructure the life out of them until they become lifeless robots who possess neither creativity nor natural incentive, until—ironically—you have to give them monetary incentive?

Of course you think so, because you have been deceived into thinking that the only way to achieve things is not to think, but to do what the instructions say, and do the same thing each time you encounter that problem, in this case: optimize and restructure.

We, as human beings, don’t realize that the way we accomplish many things is often flawed, due to our great appreciation for robotic habit. We meticulously follow the same faulty ‘algorithm to success’, in a blind sighted way. In order to succeed and excel we do exactly what we were taught, down to the letter. But we don’t think. Often, we essentially plan for failure!

I completely attribute the cause of this to our education system. At the ripe, young age of six, we left kindergarten—a friendly, warm place, in which our minds were free to be creative, to grow, and most importantly: to imagine. We then went on to elementary school—a hostile, cold place, in which we were forced to memorize multiplication tables, swallow information and regurgitate it come a test. Our minds were deprived of their ability to create, grow, and imagine; we were robbed of our natural instinct to think.

Yes, we might have been given the occasional coloring book, but that was only in order to satisfy what was once a natural craving for skill and dexterity. To wean us off the terrible drug that is creativity. But you see, that is evidently how you excel—you don’t think, you follow the guidelines.

When you are already a third of the way into your life and you graduate, you will be awarded a diploma, an authentic certificate stating that you are now qualified to perform a mundane, banal, dead end task that clearly and undeniably took thirty years to learn. Smile and wave to the audience! Hi, mom and dad! It was all a scam!

So to all you creative minds, free thinkers, artists, musicians —hipsters, if you will— kudos to you and keep it up, for you will be the ones to pull mankind out of the false pursuit of excellence in which it has been since kindergarten. Excellence is not a skill, it’s an attitude, because most of us have been deprived of our creative and thinking skills, which were replaced with the ‘success algorithm’ attitude, as the only way to excel; the completely and utterly wrong way to excel.

Hebrew Academy building ‘state-of-the-art’ playground

MONTREAL — Hebrew Academy in Côte St. Luc has started construction of a state-of-the-art outdoor playground.

The groundbreaking took place May 2, coinciding with the official launch of a fundraising campaign.

The new playground will include a soccer field, basketball court and climbing wall, as well as a preschool area and a common space designed to provide a safe environment for students.

Hebrew Academy hopes to complete the project by the end of August in time for the start of the school year.

Forty per cent of the required funds have already been raised among private donors. In addition, over $5,000 has been raised by the students themselves through their recent Skip-a-Thon.

Hebrew Academy is seeking another $300,000. Donations will be recognized on bricks, benches, or even the entire project itself.

“There’s a buzz of excitement at the school,” said Shlomo Drazin, president and chair of the board. “Staff and students alike are enthusiastically awaiting the completion of this wonderful new playground. It will be enjoyed by children of all grade levels… providing them with more opportunities to get much needed fresh air and physical activity.”

“We are off to a flying start,” said Marla Veres, co-chair of the Campaign for Excellence. “Thanks to the generous contributions of our donors we are finally able to put our dreams into reality,”

“This playground is just one example of how donors’ dollars add value to the school,” said Elly Miller, the other co-chair. “As we approach our 50th anniversary, this campaign will contribute to our broader goal of ensuring the financial security and growth of the Hebrew Academy for the next 50 years.”

The co-ed school, founded in 1967, is “committed to the overriding importance of Talmud Torah and religious practice,” while upholding “the central religious significance of both the land of Israel and the State of Israel in the life of the Jewish Canadian community.”

The current enrolment is 630 students from kindergarten to Grade 11.

Parents and other donors are encouraged to attend one of the upcoming receptions to learn more about the playground project. Contact Carolyn Steinman at 514-489-5321 or visit: www.ha-mtl.org.