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Balancing Act

By Nathan Burstein

Lisa Appel spends more time standing on her head than most Jewish educators spend on their feet. The classroom veteran with an affinity for Hebrew songs also spins more plates and juggles more scarves than her colleagues, and she’s more likely to teach in sparkly attire and a bright-pink wig.Read More

Truth Seekers: The Pursuit of Math

By Micah Kelber

At the age of 25, most New Yorkers would think twice before spending $500 a month to finance an informal school of mathematics, especially in these times of economic uncertainty. But in mathematical terms, Avital Oliver would be called a statistical outlier. After deciding that he needed time away from academia, yet still finding himself drawn to the beauty of mathematics, the Brooklyn resident created a space where people could do math for math’s sake — with no tests and no pressure to become the next awkward genius.Read More

Struggling To Stay Afloat

By Lana Gersten

Last August, just as the new academic year was starting, Rabbi Yaacov Dvorin, head of Hillel Torah North Suburban Day School, in Skokie, Ill., was facing an increase in the number of families applying for financial aid, decreased dollars coming in through fundraising efforts and the possibility of cutting back on teaching assistants. It was a tough position to be in, given that the school had limited funds and prided itself on maintaining small classroom sizes with lots of individual attention.Read More

The Next Generation: Organizers and Activists Learn the Ropes

By Beth Schwartzapfel

By 10 o’clock on a Saturday morning, a dozen bleary-eyed idealists were already milling around, chewing absently on bagels and sipping from little orange juice cartons. Sunlight streamed into the windows of the fifth floor of the brownstone on East 10th Street in New York City, where they had gathered to talk about leadership development and oppression. Later that day, they would use such words as “invisible-ize” and discuss systems of power and the best approach to knocking on doors on the Lower East Side. But they began the morning with an invocation of sorts, a reading from Grace Paley’s short story “Midrash on Happiness.”Read More

Hollywood Drama About Jewish Resistance Hits the Classroom

By Nathan Burstein

High-school history instructors don’t normally find themselves on Hollywood guest lists, so filmgoers with better inside connections might have been surprised recently by the teachers’ presence at advance screenings of “Defiance,” the Holocaust drama that opened nationwide January 16 and stars James Bond actor Daniel Craig.Read More

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