Schools

MTA Freshman families had a great time getting to know each other at the yeshivah’s Freshman Family Brunch on Sunday, November 17. The MTA community includes families from communities across the tri-state area, and this event is the perfect way for both parents and talmidim to get to know each other over brunch and a competitive game of panoply. It is one of many events hosted by MTA throughout the year for families to meet one another as well as spend time with their sons and rebbeim.

Talmidim from across the tri-state area, the country, and the world, call the MTA dorm home during the school year and enjoy the warmth of the yeshivah’s dorm community. From Shabbatons to Sunday afternoon trips, weekly family-style dinners, and inspiring shiurim and chaburos, there is a variety of meaningful programming for dorm talmidim.

This past week was an extremely productive week for Ezra Academy’s Extra Curricular. The week started off when Ezra sent a team of four students to participate for the school’s very first time in NCSY’s JUMP competition. JUMP (Jewish Unity Mentoring Program) is a high school competition where teams from all over North America come together and try to help solve or at least address important issues affecting their communities.

Every Thursday night, after a long, rigorous week with 12-hour days, bochurim in Mesivta Chofetz Chaim dedicate an additional hour of their time to learn.  From 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., talmidim can either attend a highly interactive, “hocking” shiur in Ketzos Hachoshen given by a rotation of Rebbeim including Rabbi Uri Becker, Rabbi Shlomo Lehrer, and world-renowned Rabbi Daniel Glatstein, or they can learn b’chavrusa for an hour. The program, started many years ago by Rabbi Yaakov Kier, has recently reached a record high attendance.

BYQ’s first graders discovered how delicious learning can be! The girls are learning about the lifecycles of different plants. The year’s study began with the apple’s cycle for Rosh HaShanah. For the fall, they focused on pumpkins. The teachers read a book about pumpkins to introduce the life cycle of pumpkins. The first grade classes began with two essential learning questions. First, what is a pumpkin? Their next question was: “What is inside of a pumpkin?” Interestingly, many girls predicted pumpkins would have one big pit like an avocado. Surprise! Pumpkins actually have many seeds! Once the teachers opened up the pumpkin, the girls had a third question: How many seeds are inside?