By now, you should have received your invitation to All The Magic That Is Gesher, our largest fundraiser of the year!  If you haven't yet RSVP'ed, please click on the logo to buy your tickets online and download the forms to pay tribute, place an ad, and donate an item (or service, vacation spot, memorabilia) for our auction!

Click here to donate for our auction.

Click here to pay tribute to our honorees in our Event Book.

Click here to place an ad in our Event Book.  

Questions?  Want to place an ad or tribute, but need help with wording or formatting? Contact BJ Shiff at bjshiff@verizon.net.

Let's honor our Bat Mitzvah year faculty and staff by placing a tribute to them in Gesher's event book for the spring Guardian of the Bridge event, All the Magic that is Gesher. The book will be distributed to some 250+ attendees (Gesher parents and grandparents, school supporters, honorees' families, staff and faculty, and more) at the event on March 27. 

This year we honor Jo Gordon, Graciela Granek, Jeanne Leckert and Beverly Kramer. (Beverly and husband Neal are also one of the Guardian of the Bridge honorees, along with Meryl and Joel Goldhammer.)

Buy your ad or pay tribute to our wonderful honorees!

Shomrei Gesher Phone-A-Thon  

Monday March 7th Please come and help us raise money for Shomrei Gesher.  Monday March 7th from 7-9pm.  If you can come for a half hour or an hour during that time frame, we would appreciate the help.  Shomrei Gesher pledges help cover the difference between tuition and the cost of our amazing Gesher education.  If you have not yet made a pledge, please contact Rebekah Dickinson at rdickinson@gesher-jds.org.  Thank you!

Today is the 100th day of school!  

Yasher koach to the Gesher United basketball teams and their coaches, Jack England and Sharon Rosenblatt, on fantastic recent victories- Gesher United's longest winning streak since joining the ABC League! 

The results are in:

• Gesher United wins against Browne Academy: Boys 44-2; Girls 30-5; Feb. 22
• Gesher United wins against Merritt Academy: Boys 49-27; Girls 26-4; Feb 16
• Gesher United wins against Capital Hill Day School: Boys 50-47; Girls 26-10 ; Feb 15
• Gesher United wins against Green Hedges: Boys 34-21; Girls 28-4; Feb 8

Join us courtside for the next Gesher United game.  You might even spot a purple gorilla in the crowd!

Yasher Koach to Eighth Grader Daniel S., who won 1st place in the Northern Virginia's Music Teacher's Association Woodwind's Concerto Competition (Elementary division)!  To read more about current Gesher students doing amazing things in the community, click here!  Want to k'vel over your Gesher student?  Please email Laura Strouse at LStrouse@gesher-jds.org to have it appear in the next On the Bridge! 

Preparing for the 21^st Century

STEM-driven initiatives are being seen nationwide in schools as science, technology, engineering and math offerings are ramped up to prepare students for living and working in the 21^st century.  Gesher's five-year strategic plan, Destination Gesher! mandates that we pay close attention to STEM efforts so that our students are on the cutting edge of such efforts.  Here are two ways in which STEM is top of mind for us right now:

1. Last week, every 7^th grade student at our school received a Dell Inspiron tablet/laptop which will remain in his/her possession through the end of their 8^th grade year at Gesher.  Students will bring their laptops to school each day, using them routinely in their classes for taking notes, conducting real-time research, participating in class blogs, creating class wikis, engaging in live video-conferences, participating in World Math Day activities along with other students from around the world, and so much more.  Teachers across the disciplines are fine-tuning their curricula to allow maximum use of the technology in their classrooms, opening up a whole new world of learning for our students.  This is a pilot project we are calling Accessing, Connecting, Excelling (ACE).  Assuming that the pilot is the success we expect it to be, future 7^th graders can look forward to receiving their own laptops to power up their middle school experience.
2. At Gesher, watershed study, in which students engage in water testing, habitat evaluation, macro-invertebrate observation, and soil testing has been an important part of our science and environmental education for some time.  Every three years (so that every middle school students experiences this once), grades 6-8 spend a day on the Chesapeake Bay in a program called Living Classroom, a ship-board experience that has our students in the field, up close with the bay's wildlife, and engaged in water testing.  In addition, our beautiful campus houses a vernal pond which middle schoolers frequent to do regular water and soil tests, as well as biological observations.  This is where our students see the annual salamanderand frog explosion as these creatures migrate to mate. This year, a vernal pond expert will visit on an evening in March (after dark is the best time to witness the migration) to talk with students and parents who would like to be here.In addition, our 7^th grade class will be experiencing the watershed in a powerful way this spring when the class takes a two-day trip along the watershed, starting at Piney Branch Creek and then river-walking, busing, and canoeing their way along Pope's Head Creek,Bull Run, making their way finally to the Occoquan.  In partnership with Hemlock Overlook, students will literally immerse themselves in the watershed for two full days.  They will monitor the water's health at various points along the watershed's path via chemical tests and by observing the small creatures (macro-invertebrates) that live there.  Beforehand, those students will be visiting a water treatment facility and a sewage treatment plant in March, and will participate in a spring stream clean up.  By the end of the year, they will have a full understanding of the path our water travels from a rainstorm at Gesher to the sea, and what it takes to ensure that we enjoy clean, healthy water in our community.  This is the Gesher value-added experience that $8/student simply cannot buy!

After School Hebrew Class, Organized by 8th grade students!

Starting next Wednesday, we will have 8th grade students available to help students up through Kitah Gimel with homework, reading, speaking and practicing Hebrew from 3:30-4:15pm.  Please contact Graciela Granek if your child is interested in participating ggranek@gesher-jds.org. 

Spotlight on 2 Gesher Alumni! (To read more on other Gesher Alumni, click here.)

 Shoshana S. 

Samantha M. 

If you know me, you know that I am a passionate advocate for Israel.  Recently, I took that passion a step further and accepted a position with the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA). Founded in 1982, CAMERA is a media-monitoring, research organization that is committed to establishing accurate and balanced media coverage of Israel and the Middle East.  You can find out more about what CAMERA does on our website, here:

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=24 

Recently, CAMERA launched a new program called the CAMERA Campus Activist Project (CCAP).  CCAP is dedicated to "assisting in creating pro-Israel student organizations on college campuses across the country, enabling like-minded students to present speakers and hold events - as well as to organize in response to biased activity against the Jewish state."  There is more information in the new CCAP section of our website, here:

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=56&x_miscitem=33 

Anti-Israel propaganda is powerful and constant on college campuses across the world.  It is therefore important that we are able to help students- tomorrow's policy makers- counter the spread of anti-Israel falsehoods on their campuses and beyond.  CCAP is dedicated to giving students the resources and funding to form groups and societies to advocate for Israel, especially on campuses where such groups do not already exist.

As the new CAMERA Campus Associate, I am searching for students to form new, autonomous student groups dedicated to fighting for Israel on campuses where there is little to no Israel advocacy.  We may also help fund already existing, autonomous, pro-Israel groups that do not have enough funding to effectively promote Israeli education. To do this, I need help in getting the word out!  If you yourself would be interested in participating in CCAP, or if you know of any college students who would be excellent student leaders for Israel in college communities that lack Israel activity, please let me know!  You may contact me at Samantha@CAMERA.org, or you may contact my colleague, Aviva Slomich, the Director of Student Programming, at Aviva@CAMERA.org.  We are looking forward to hearing from you!

Pictures:

Devorah F. counts 100 paper-clips on the 100th day of school

Mateo S. counts 100 pieces of pasta on the 100th day of school!

Noa C. brings food to her table during Kitah Alef's Israeli Restaurant.

Kitah Alef students enjoy turning their classroom into an Israeli Restaurant.

Gesher United basketball players pose with our new Purple Gorilla mascot!

Nadav K. with Gesher's new Purple Gorilla mascot!

Why should we recycle? 

Audubon magazine recently ran an article reiterating the many values of recycling.  According to the Environmental Protection Agency, we currently recycle only about a third of our annual total of 250 million tons of waste, and still that saves the equivalent of 10.2 billion gallons of gasoline each year!  Plus, recycling helps slow the spread of dumps, it keeps plastic out of the food chain, and it prevents hundreds of millions of gallons of used motor oil from fouling our streams and lakes.  Imagine the benefits if we could recycle all our waste!

Aluminum cans are probably the most important single item to recycle.  These cans can be recycled right back into new aluminum cans.  The US aluminum companies actually import more than 7 billion used cans each year (about 90,000 tons!) to reduce their energy expenses, and other costs.    One ton of recycled steel prevents 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal, and 120 pounds of limestone, from getting gouged out of the earth, according to the Steel Recycling Institute. 

Here at Gesher we make recycling a part of the culture of the school.  Paper, cans, and plastic bottles are recycled in the classrooms and in the lunchroom.  Compost, the original form of "recycling" as it turns food scraps back into soil for the gardens, is also done daily in the cafeteria.  Hopefully, you are also recycling at home.  If not, it's time to begin.  The health of the planet your children will inherit depends on it.

The Art of Seeing a Story   

by Julia Malakoff

Every weekday morning, while all four kids are seated at the table, shoveling cheerios down their o shaped mouths, I try and limit breakfast battles by reading a book.  It does not seem to matter what kind of book I read, for they seem eager in the early hour to listen and concentrate on the tale at hand. It fascinates me that each child is able to enjoy the book, no matter what their reading level, and it has led me to think about the power of story books.

Recently, I read an article about a teen who was never taught how to read a book until only a few years back. He knew how to read the words, however, nothing made sense to him. He was never taught how to really READ and interpret the printed pages into pictures. He was never able to enjoy the story, because it was never explained to him how to listen to the words and create images in his mind.

Upon reading about this young man's experience and how, after so many years of him reading and yet not reading, I started thinking about the first time that I learned to read...beyond just the words. We were living in Iowa and I was sitting on my dad's lap as he read to me a couple of pages from Mark Twain's, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  I will never forget my father telling the story using all sorts of funny voices and then pausing in the middle to ask me if I could envision what was happening in the story:  Tom, white washing the picket fence and Tom, engaging the attention of Becky Thatcher with all sorts of silly stunts.  I was probably too young to have read Mark Twain's works on my own; however, having the story read to me, I could easily enjoy listening to the tale of Tom and his misadventures. I was fortunate to have someone explain to me the early process of reading, painting pictures in one's mind.

At least once a week my three-year old son and I march to the public library to choose an array of stories. We usually lean towards large, illustrated picture stories.  We have managed to find every pirate book possible.  He tends to pull random books off the shelves and stuff them into our book bag and I try to surreptitiously slip them back into their Dewey Decimal home.  One afternoon, my mother accompanied us and she found a wonderful book by an artist author named Red Grooms. An American born in 1937, Grooms is known for his large, environmental sculpture with a satirical view of life. When Grooms applies his talents to his book entitled, Rembrandt Takes a Walk, not only does Rembrandt emerge from the past, but the reader finds himself strolling right along, learning all about famous art pieces through the artistic author's painterly pictures. It is true; you are never too young to step into a good story, especially if it is told with expression and animation. And, when a story is told using the power of pictures, a young reader is given an extra special gift of learning how to see a story.

Save the date and order your tickets!    

The Gesher PTO is sponsoring a screening of the important film, RACE TO NOWHERE on Sunday, March 13, 2011 at 7:00 pm at Cinema Arts Theatres in Fairfax, VA.  The film is approximately 90 minutes long and will be followed by a facilitated panel discussion with audience participation.

To register to see the film and purchase your ticket, go to: http://rtncinemaarts313-autohome.eventbrite.com/ and FIND our screening.  If you have any questions about the film or the screening, please feel free to contact Michelle Stravitz  mstravitz@verizon.net.

RACE TO NOWHERE

Featuring the heartbreaking stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink, educators who are burned out and worried that students aren't developing the skills they need, and parents who are trying to do what's best for their kids, Race to Nowhere points to the silent epidemic in our schools: cheating has become commonplace, students have become disengaged, stress-related illness, depression and burnout are rampant, and young people arrive at college and the workplace unprepared and uninspired.

Race to Nowhere is a call to mobilize families, educators, and policy makers to challenge current assumptions on how to best prepare the youth of America to become healthy, bright, contributing and leading citizens.

In a grassroots sensation already feeding a groundswell for change, hundreds of theaters, schools and organizations nationwide are hosting community screenings during a six month campaign to screen the film nationwide. Tens of thousands of people are coming together, using the film as the centerpiece for raising awareness, radically changing the national dialogue on education and galvanizing change. 

Featured in the film:

• Dr. Madeline Levine, Clinical Psychologist and author of the best-seller, The Price of Privilege
• Dr. Wendy Mogel, Clinical Psychologist and author of The Blessing of a Skinned Knee
• Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, Adolescent Medicine Specialist, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
• Dr. Deborah Stipek, Dean of the School of Education at Stanford University
• Dr. Denise Pope, Co-Founder, Challenge Success, Stanford University
• Sara Bennett, Founder, Stop Homework

Mishloach Manot!

Behatzlachah to Ester Greenblat, who has left Gesher after 19 wonderful years!

Welcome to Yanai Zamir, our new Kitah Gimel Jewish Studies teacher!

Refuah Shlemah to Mr. Ennis, who is in the hospital.  

Mazel Tov to the new INTERNATIONAL President of BBYO, Gesher alumna, Samantha L.!

(next stop: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!) 

In honor of the Gesher Gorilla

            Debra and Paul Mendelson

In honor of Dottie Bennett's Birthday

            Miriam and Jeffrey Berkowitz

Rebekah and Clay Dickinson

Ingrid and Zvi Schoenburg

Nancy Lang

Sandy and Leonard Barmak

Dede and Kenneth Feinberg

Nancy Kane

Louise and Earl Hodin

In memory of Marlene Venter

            Iris and Biff Henley

In memory of Henry Hubschman

Iris and Biff Henley

In memory of Millie Hammond

Iris and Biff Henley

In memory of Francis Chisdes z"l

Iris and Biff Henley

Learn more about the American Hebrew Academy on March 10th 

Hazon Israel Bike Ride

The Second Annual Israel Advocacy Training Institute

Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia upcoming events

Olam Tikvah Sisterhood invites the community to an afternoon of Food, Fashion & Fun!

The Jewish Federation Wants to Help! If you are in need of financial   

assistance at t his time, or if you know anyone in the community who 

is in need, please do not hesitate to contact the Jewish Federation's Warm Line at 1-866-950-4AID.