Students wrote and illustrated booklets featuring five things each student loves about his or her own tradition and five things that a friend from the other school loves about his or her religion. Students, wrote, decorated and shared with one another, as faculty from both schools assisted and looked on.

MJCDS extends warm thanks to the faculty, students and community of MAM, including school director Seema Tahir, for an afternoon that left us filled with hope.  We look forward to seeing our friends again this spring! 

I love the Quran because if we read it we go to Paradise. I love reading it.  It has meaning.

A few spot a bark-colored fur ball high up a tree. A few more hawk-eyed children note that this fur ball, aka, cat, has a collar on it and therefore must belong to someone! (Note excellent deductive thinking of these students.) 

 

What should we do? Call the FIRE DEPARTMENT! Result: we are told that the fire department does not fetch cats out of trees any longer. 

 

Next day, after a very very cold night, the scenario: Oh no! The cat is STILL stuck in the tree. What can we do? 

 

We stop passersby and ask them to phone the humane society. We walk over to the nearby construction workers with their large machinery and ask if they will help. The construction workers respond that they can not help! 

 

We ask a gentleman in a Terminex truck to help. He takes his ladder over. It is not long enough! 

 

Oh no! What can we do? 

 

We go inside for class. We go out for lunch recess and return to report that the cat is still stuck in the tree, only now higher!!! 

 

We call the police department: they can't help. 

We call the humane society: they can't help. 

We call the forest department: they can't help. 

We call the parks and recreation department: they can't help. 

We call the health department: they can't help.  

We call animal control: they can't help. 

 

We call the University of Wisconsin Arboretum where the cat is stuck: they can't help, but they tell us to call a "tree doctor"/arborist. We call one and have to leave a message. Then we call another.

 

We call Capital City Tree Experts and get a message to call Darrell Krenz. We call. He listens. He ponders. He graciously comes out and straps himself up. He goes up a very, very long ladder. He harnesses himself into the equipment. He still can't get to the smelly, scared fur ball. Roberto, our TBE custodian, races to the rescue. He comes out with a very long light bulb changing pole to prod the cat. He brings out a tarp. 

 

Finally our hero, Darrell the cat saver, grabs the cat, who now is clawed into him and FRIGHTENED. Darrell does not want to drop him 20-30 feet into the tarp. He is more than encouraged to do so. He finally does. Down drops the cat into the tarp.  The cat then jumps to the ground and runs (hopefully home and not up another tree). 

 

OUR complete thanks to Darrell Krenz, our cat hero, and to Roberto! Tzar baalei hayim, caring for creatures, is an important mitzvah in our lives, and MJCDS students initiated this rescue and made sure it was carried out! Thanks to everyone for their help! 

-Meisha Leibson

Fri. Nov. 4:       Swimming Lessons.  

                 Kabbalat Shabbat Together, 1:25 pm.  

 

Wed. Nov 9:     Alfie Kohn education lecture and discussion, 7-9 pm (see below for details)

 

Fri. Nov. 11:      K-2 Kabbalat Shabbat, 8:10-8:40.  

 

Swimming Lessons.  Please pack swim supplies and drop a car seat if you don't already have one at school. 

-Jodi Harris

    

The 3/4 class has recently been studying different types of rocks and minerals and their properties. Students practiced identifying unknown minerals by their color, luster, streak (color powder they leave behind when rubbed on unglazed tile) and hardness as determined by a scratch test. Students are now learning about differences between renewable and non-renewable natural resources and discussing the need for a greater dependence on renewable energy sources, as opposed to our current dependence on fossil fuels.

-Geri Goldman