Our Stories

Students Delve Into the Mysteries of a Seceding Kingdom, Multiple Golden Calves, and Ten Lost Tribes

June 29, 2016 by Ronit Greenstein (Faculty and Staff) Shifra Chelst (Faculty and Staff)

This year, our sixth graders were drawn into a mystery in their Judaic Studies class. Exploring the text of Melachim Bet, Kings II, they discovered that puzzling stories abound in our past, rich with plots, lost tribes, confounding motives, and the appearance of multiple golden calves. And with these mysteries came many opportunities to question, […]


JPDS-NC Celebrates Yom Ha’atzmaut

May 16, 2016 by Ronit Greenstein (Faculty and Staff) Sharon Freundel (Community)

JPDS-NC had a school-wide, all-day celebration for Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day! The students spent the day traveling to cities and special places in Israel. In Yerushalayim, younger students built the Kotel out of boxes and wrote notes for it, and older students made trifolds of the three major religions of the city. In Be’er […]

  • Dance
  • Holidays
  • Israel
  • Multimedia
  • Music
  • Visual Arts

Third Grade Megillah Reader Featured on Jewish Braille Institute Website

May 11, 2016 by Ronit Greenstein (Faculty and Staff)

Yasher Koach to Batya S., who is featured on the homepage of Jewish Braille Institute International (JBI). The website includes a link to a video of Batya’s extraordinary and inspiring reading of Megillat Esther. The Third Grader read beautifully from her braille megillah as part our campus-wide Purim celebration. Kol Hakavod to Batya! And thank […]

  • Holidays
  • Multimedia
  • Music

Sixth Graders Meet Holocaust Survivors at Yom HaShoah Commemoration

May 10, 2016 by Gabriel B (’16) (Students) Johanna L (’16) (Students)

Last Thursday, JPDS-NC Sixth Graders attended the Yom HaShoah Commemoration at the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C. For many, meeting with a Holocaust survivor is a once in a lifetime opportunity. We are extremely thankful to have been given that opportunity. We had the privilege of hearing from two inspiring Holocaust survivors, Marione Ingram and […]

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Sixth Grade Students Invited to Display Art about the Holocaust at Community Commemoration

April 20, 2016 by Shifra Chelst (Faculty and Staff)

A fishbowl, half-filled with dirt, with a paper butterfly inside. Taped around the outside of the fishbowl: the poem “I Never Saw Another Butterfly,” which we read during our 5th grade Holocaust study. A tube of golf balls, 6 yellow for the Jews, 5 others in various colors for the gays, Jehovah’s witnesses and Roma […]

  • Holidays
  • Project Based Learning
  • Visual Arts

JPDS-NC Students Build Pesach-Themed Rube Goldberg Machine for Technion Design Challenge

April 20, 2016 by Alexandra Taylor (Faculty and Staff)

A team of JPDS-NC 5th and 6th graders took on the first ever RAVSAK-Technion Design Challenge! They built a Passover-themed Rube Goldberg machine that journeys through the ten plagues. Check out our behind-the-scenes video!

  • Design Thinking
  • Holidays
  • Multimedia
  • Project Based Learning
  • STEAM
  • STEM

Exploring Judaic Texts using P’shat, D’rash and Design Thinking

March 31, 2016 by Zahava Bensimon (Faculty and Staff)

What do a gift-giving bridge, a clay heart, a ring and an altar all have in common? If you had the chance to step into the JPDS-NC Design Lab in the recent few weeks or overheard the fourth graders talking about their ‘Judaic Studies project’, you might know that each of those objects were parts […]

  • Design Thinking
  • Project Based Learning
  • STEAM

Interdisciplinary Learning on Display at the Art and Science Expo

February 17, 2016 by Elana Cohen (Faculty and Staff)

With our North Campus Design Lab up and running, teams of students had opportunities to practice Design Thinking and to make their learning visible with access to a variety of materials and tools for this year’s Expo projects. Calling it an “Art and Science” Expo is somewhat limiting, as much of the work was truly […]

  • Design Thinking
  • Project Based Learning
  • STEAM
  • STEM
  • Visual Arts

Avoiding the Around and About to Teach the Text

January 6, 2016 by Sharon Freundel (Community)

I had a Bible Professor who often said about the Biblical text, “Everything else is around it or about it. This is it.” I feel that way about the various genres of Jewish texts, both biblical and Rabbinic. For our children to be educated Jews, it is not enough for them to learn around them […]

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Celebrating the Light Within at Rabin Ceremony

December 15, 2015 by Sharon Freundel (Community) Shoshana Sfarzada (Faculty and Staff)

On the last day of Chanukah, the whole school gathered for a powerful, light-filled ceremony marking the culmination of the Rabin Curriculum on Conflict Resolution. The program centered on the idea of “light” and the “light within” each person. We built a large artistic chanukiah that filled the back wall of the stage. Each grade, from […]

  • Holidays
  • Israel
  • Multimedia