August 12, 2011
Dear Am Yisrael Community,

I am writing to you from Door County, Wisconsin on my summer oasis away from day-to-day life. My summer has been filled with great visits to Jewish summer camps, curriculum design, meeting with all of our teachers and hiring new teachers and madrichim. Before my vacation, I started calling families of current and potential students for our Gan (Kindergarten) and post-B’nai Mitzvah Prozdor (8th Grade) for our Am Yisrael School of Jewish Studies who have not yet registered for the school. Please tell your friends that formal Hebrew instruction (including reading using SMARTBoard and other
technology) is now beginning with our Aleph (1st Grade) class and is no longer starting in Gimel (3rd Grade). There will be informal Hebrew in the Gan (Kindergarten) class. We also have an awesome post-B’nai Mitzvah curriculum. Jewish education beyond B’nai Mitzvah is a high priority at the Am Yisrael School of Jewish Studies. All class curricula and a schedule of the days for each grade, Gan (Kindergarten) taught by Mrs. Lynn Washer through Confirmation (10th Grade) taught by Cantor Simon, can be found on our incredibly updated website. The forms for Youth Group can be found there as well. The combination of formal and informal Jewish experiences make a further impact on one’s Jewish identity.

Please look under the Education tab on the navigation menu above to find out all you need to know about our upgraded school. You can also register for the school online, by fax or via snail mail. Simply go to the dark green tab on the left side of our synagogue homepage to create an online Am Yisrael account and to get the forms you need. It makes it so much easier for us in terms of ordering materials to have all registration forms received in a timely fashion. That ordering is taking place now. Please recommend our school to current congregants who do not currently send their children to our school or to Jewish Day School, and/or to families who are undecided on which synagogue to join.

We look forward to the 2011-2012 school year, which will be amazing! We look forward to seeing you on Sunday, September 11th, if not sooner, for the first day of Jewish Studies classes. In the meantime, enjoy summer and please be sure to register if you have not already.

Shabbat Shalom,

Mr. Charlie Sherman