Dear Yavneh Family,

When our seniors returned this week from Poland and Israel, they were different from the young women and men who had left Dallas just a few weeks earlier.  In short, the March of the Living trip had touched and transformed them in ways that simply cannot be accomplished in a classroom.

While our school group comprised but a small number out of the thousands who marched, The Jerusalem Post chose Yavneh senior and student council co-president Serina Romick to articulate the impact of the March on her fellow travelers in an excellent article on the experience.

http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Uplifting-end-to-the-2015-March-of-the-Living-399067

Meanwhile, it was a week of agonizing news from Baltimore (my home town) and from Nepal, where Israel has been among the first responders to that terrible natural tragedy

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/insideisrael/2015/April/Israel-Sends-Large-Scale-Mission-to-Nepal/

In the face of complicated world events, our Yavneh students have been taught how to make sense and how to act.  From their study of History to their immersion in Jewish Studies to their services in the Beit Midrash, our teens appreciate the need for compassion, for justice and for prayer.  Whether calling for peace or celebrating the birth of a child or the healing of a sick classmate, Yavneh students possess the skills and attitudes that qualify them as young adults who are bound to make a deeply positive impact on the world they inhabit. It is a joy and privilege to be a part of such a community.

Shabbat Shalom and Am Yisrael Chai,