Local

While schools were closed for the federal holiday last week, over 500 Jewish educators participated in an annual professional development conference for yeshivah and day school professionals. Teachers and principals from 14 schools in Metro New York attended the Annual Yeshiva Day School Day of Learning, run by The Jewish Education Project (formerly known as the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York, or BJE).

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President Donald Trump broke barriers by being the first US president to kick off the regularly-issued invitation from organizers of the New York City Veterans Day Tribute Parade in the 100^th annual gathering organized by the United War Veterans Council in Madison Park. There, the president pronounced “your greatest tribute of all is the way you lived your lives in the years since.” In a different kind of accolade, the Margaret Tietz Nursing and Rehabilitation Center community located in the Jamaica section of Queens continued a time-honored Veterans Day tradition of inviting a local politician to showcase the glorious lives and pay tribute to their residents who served in the military. Over 40 occupants assembled in a demonstration of respect to the veterans that comprised roughly half under long-term care while the others are participants in the rehabilitation division. True they may not be as spry as when they fought oversees, but their spirit is remembered in an established tradition where Margaret Tietz ensures that the Queens community remembers their efforts.

My parents and grandparents came to the United States from the Soviet Union about 40 years ago. They sacrificed all that they had so that I could one day be born in the greatest country in the entire world. Growing up, my father would often tell me about his first few years in the United States, having to decide on some days whether to take the subway home or to buy himself dinner, as he could not afford to do both. His stories always ended with the same few words: “It was all worth it, because you were born an American.”

Mrs. Basya Wolff, a teacher for 40 years and a mother of nine, is offering a unique hands-on, enlightening parenting class in Shaare Tova Synagogue in Kew Gardens, Queens. She is a certified Conversational Intelligence coach.