AMIT Kamah Robotics Team Off to a Great Start
The AMIT Kamah Yerucham robotics team won first place at the FIRST Tech Challenge preliminary national competition.
AMIT Sutker Modi’in to the Rescue
Since the beginning of the school year, students have been developing a website called GREAT (Give, Receive, Eat) aimed at linking businesses that sell food, including function halls, restaurants, and hotels, with food rescue organizations in order to channel surplus food to the needy instead of throwing it away.
Warm Welcome at AMIT for French Immigrants
Two principals representing the AMIT Network traveled to Paris recently to visit Jewish schools and participate in an Aliyah Fair sponsored by the Jewish Agency.
AMIT Wasserman Ma’ale Adumim Student Recognized for Leadership and Community Involvement
Shelly Omer, a student at AMIT Wasserman Ma’ale Adumim High School for Girls, was one of 11 students recognized nationally for leadership and community involvement.
AMIT Noga Bellows Students Dodge the Ball
The dodgeball teams at AMIT Bellows Ulpanat Noga, Beit Shemesh, won two championships last week, their city’s top prize and a national cup.
AMIT Atidim Teacher Wins Prestigious Award
Congratulations to Michal Walter, a physics teacher at AMIT Atidim High School in Or Akiva, who was who has received the Trump Foundation’s Master Teacher Award and a prize of 10,000 shekels.
AMIT and the Definition Of simcha
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE DESCRIBES “the pursuit of happiness” as an “inalienable right”. Our Torah, however, describes the experience of happiness as an obligation:“V’samachta b’chagecha…v’hayita ach sameach” — “And you shall rejoice on your holiday, and you should only be happy.” Devarim 16:14,15. The formulation of this mitzvah is unusual, since Jewish law typically legislates concrete deeds and behaviors: what we eat, how we speak, how we do business. All these are definable actions, and in order to fulfill our obligations, we simply do, or refrain from doing, the act that is described: I only eat food that is kosher, I don’t gossip, I pay all of my taxes. With the requirement to be happy, however, Halacha is legislating an emotion, which by definition is subjective and unpredictable. Ask a dozen people what makes them happy and chances are you will get a dozen different answers. How are we supposed to fulfill this obligation to rejoice when it is such a personal experience? Does the philosophy of Judaism define for us what it means to be happy? How we can concretize the fulfillment of this mitzvah?
Ancient Jewish Education
Jewish teaching and learning have been essential components of Jewish tradition since the earliest times. The command to “teach your children” first appeared in D’varim (Deuteronomy) as part of what later became the Shema – the most central of Jewish prayers. Rabbinic literature is filled with references to schools and schooling and to teaching and learning taking place at all levels, and for all ages from the youngest children through adulthood. According to the midrash on Bereshit, the first thing that Beit Yakov did on leaving Canaan was to establish schools. It is no accident that Jews are often known as “The People of the Book.” Jewish life is lived according to texts, commentary, and interpretation of those texts. The varied methods of teaching them include instructive, experiential, argument, and discussion. And that methodology continues to this day.
From A Cafeteria In The Bronx To A Kitchen In Kfar Blatt
This past spring, Ellen and Stanley Wasserman donated a major gift of $3,000,000 towards the renovation of the Kfar Blatt Youth Village in Petach Tikva. The money will go towards mishpachton (surrogate family) apartments and a state-of-the art industrial kitchen that will have the capacity to serve 700 meals a day.
Inspiration Collaboration Innovation
Ordinarily, June 23 would not be the optimal time to hold a full-day teachers’ workshop, what with final grades to input and end-of-the year activities, but for the dozens of AMIT network teachers who have spent the past year in a new, groundbreaking program called GOGYA, skipping the workshop never crossed their minds.