As we reflect on the past school year and plan ahead, we continue to think about the impact that a JPDS-NC education has had on our students, especially our alumni. Our alumni carry the core values of JPDS-NC with them as they go forth in the world and bring positive change in new surroundings.You are innovative, dynamic, wise, adventurous, and engaged members of the community.We hope to see you soon for a visit on one of our community service days. Enjoy the summer!
- Naomi Reem, Head of School
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Alumni Highlights
This year, thanks to the work of JPDS-NC parent Rhoda Hersson-Ringskog (Ruthie '24), we conducted a series of alumni interviews to learn more about the great things our alumni are pursuing. In the Fall and Spring newsletters, we featured Rachel Federowicz ('92) and Leah Schultz ('04). We continue our series by highlighting six extraordinary alumni.
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Ezra Marcus ('00)
Ezra graduated from Harvard Law School in May 2015 and is currently in Houston, Texas on a year-long stint as a Law Clerk for Judge Jennifer Elrod on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He has lined up a job in Washington D.C with District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Colombia starting in the autumn of 2016.
Learn more
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Rachel Brandenburg ('92)
Rachel currently works at the Pentagon, in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the Middle East. She focuses on Iraq and the global coalition to counter-ISIL. In her spare time she plays ultimate frisbee, rock climbs, runs, bikes, and still enjoys arts and crafts. She speaks Hebrew, Arabic, and some French.
Learn more
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Oren Hirsch ('97)
Oren is currently pursuing a Masters of Community Planning at the University of Maryland (expected completion May 2017) and works as a Transportation Planner at Foursquare Integrated Transportation Planning, a privately owned transportation planning firm specializing in regional planning, transit planning and bike share planning in Rockville, MD.
Learn more
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Arielle Fontheim ('07)
Arielle will be entering her senior year at the University of Michigan. She is pre-med with a major in Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience (BCN). Arielle is scheduled to graduate from Michigan in 2017 followed by a gap year, and then she hopes to start medical school thereafter.
Learn more
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Ben Kalter ('02)
From 2013 to the present, Ben has been working with the Bank of New York Mellon in their NYC office as a Senior Associate Financial Analyst. Outside of work, Ben volunteers with groups like The Friendship Circle, which he began working with as a high school student in D.C. In NYC he helped a newly formed branch of Friendship Circle gain traction in the community.
Learn more
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Gabriella Pereira-Feron ('09)
Gabriella is a rising sophomore
at Princeton University where she plans to major in Chemistry. She continues to pursue her love for music by singing in the alto section of the William Trego Singers Choir (Princeton's Glee Club) and she has already sung for their counterparts at Harvard and Yale.
Learn more
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| Beloved Traditions Continue |
T
enth Annual Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Lecture
By: Adina Kanefield, Director of Institutional Advancement
The Rabin Lecture Series represents the tradition of creativity, ingenuity and parent and alumni involvement at JPDS-NC. The genesis of the lecture series began with Jeffrey Colman, JPDS-NC Board President during our first years in our North Campus. A deep lover of Israel and an advocate of the school's core value of Ayin L'Tzion (Looking Toward Zion), Jeff consulted with the Rabin family to find a way to honor Yitzhak Rabin and his quest for peace, and to bring the study of Rabin's life into our student curriculum. Through books, words, ideas, curricula, creative programming and community outreach, Jeff sought to create a permanent legacy at JPDS-NC. We dedicated our school library to Rabin, launched a tradition of our lecture series, and developed a course of study for our students throughout the grades of our school. The tradition that Jeff Colman began remains a beloved one at the school. Leon Wieseltier and David Brooks lent their considerable talents to JPDS-NC in nurturing this series and creating the in-depth and personal dialogues on peacemaking that are signatures of this program. Over the years many alumni parents have been involved with the lecture and this
year that tradition continued with alumni parent Charles Lane who conducted a dialogue with former JPDS-NC parent and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro, and alumni parents Jeffrey Colman's continued involvement and Steve Rabinowitz's chairmanship. At each lecture, we are thrilled to see alumni families and students attend and volunteer. This year, alumni volunteers Ethan Josovitz ('11), Rochelle Berman ('16), Aaron Knishkowy ('14), Noah Knishkowy ('16), and Jacob Zuckerman ('16) helped make the event a success.
Check out the photos from this year's event!
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Sixth Grade New York Trip
By: Miranda Chadwick, Middle School Project Coordinator
It was NYC or bust as this year's 6
th
graders loaded the bus early on the morning of May 24th! Visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Tenement Museum, as well as taking in a Broadway show and baseball game - all mainstays of the annual trip to New York City for JPDS-NC's oldest students - were enjoyed by all. A walking tour of Hasidic Williamsburg and a stop at Brooklyn Bridge Park (carousel ride included!) have been added in recent years, and round out a truly memorable experience for the students. The great activities and the moments in between - the bus ride, walking around, kicking back in the hotel room - truly make these days and nights in NYC those to remember.
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| Familiar Faces Return to JPDS-NC |
Dan Brandenburg
We welcome founding JPDS-NC parent
Dan Brandenburg to JPDS-NC's Board of Trustees.
Maayan Rose
During the spring semester, Maayan Rose ('10) joined JPDS-NC's South Campus team to volunteer and work with students in pre-kindergarten through first grade.
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Marketing and Branding Initiative
By: Naomi Reem, Head of School
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With our expansion plans in full force, and our school name change imminent, we have begun a marketing and branding initiative that will pertain to our entire school. Our expansion is a milestone moment in our history, and we are seizing the opportunity to think about what the community should know about us and what makes our school unique.
To lead this effort with us, we engaged the educational marketing firm Creosote Affect
to assist in developing marketing and branding strategies. The firm has worked with Jewish day schools as well as other independent schools around the country. Creosote's discovery team is composed of several individuals who will conduct research and guide
the development of the overall positioning and marketing strategies. The team will also lead the creative design elements of the marketing plan.
Read on
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Alumni Community Service and Visiting Days
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Volunteer, visit and perform community service at JPDS-NC! Join us on
November 7, December 2, March 31, or April 7. Help students and teachers in the classrooms, assist on school
wide initiatives and projects, meet with JPDS-NC leadership, and participate in a
tikkun olam
project.
Email
alumni@jpds.org
to attend.
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JPDS-NC's Alumni Speakers Bureau is designed to bring alumni back into the JPDS-NC classroom to share their knowledge, expertise, and experiences with current students. If you are interested in becoming a speaker, e
mail
alumni@jpds.org
or call 202.882.4747.
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Hats Off to Our Graduates
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We welcome JPDS-NC's class of 2016 to the alumni community. They are off to extraordinary middle schools (listed below) and we can't wait to see what they do next!
Alice Deal Middle School
Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School
Community Day School
E. Brooke Lee Middle School
Edmund Burke School
The Field School
Lowell School
McLean School
Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy
Pyle Middle School
Sidwell Friends Academy
Westland Middle School
Mazel tov to JPDS-NC's Class of 2010 on their graduation from high school. Our alumni
will be attending colleges and gap year programs across the USA and Israel this fall.
We wish them the best!
Brandeis University
Cornell University
Nativ College Leadership Program
New York University
Northwestern University
Salisbury University
Peabody Institute of John Hopkins University
University of California Los Angeles
University of California Santa Cruz
University of Chicago
University of Maryland
University of Wisconsin
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- Ethan Josovitz ('11) earned an All-PVAC Track & Field honor (second team).
- Ronee Goldman ('11) placed as a semi-finalist in the 33rd annual English-Speaking Union National Shakespeare Competition. Ronee previously won the ESU Washington, DC Branch competition.
- Mazel tov to Jeni Bauser Yagahoubi ('92) and husband Doron on the birth of their baby girl, Sienna Lily.
- Mazel Tov to Sara Brandenburg ('99) on her marriage to Avi Sunshine.
- Gabriel Brumberg ('16) appeared in playwright Heather Raffo's NOURA, presented by Epic Theatre Ensemble in NYC.
- Eliana Kanefield ('07) is a Goldman Fellow working at AJC's Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs.
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Ari Fontheim
('07) is spending her summer working at the National Institute of Health.
- Harry Weinstein ('11) was named Editor-in-Chief of the Sidwell Friends Newspaper. He was awarded the Allan Dessoff Memorial Award for Student Journalism.
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Samantha Knapp
('09) is interning at No Labels, a political advocacy firm.
- Raina Weinstein ('10) will be entering The University of Chicago in September as a Stamps Foundation Scholar.
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Aden Berger
('14)
,
Andrew Kupfer
('14), and
Ethan Neufeld
('14) have been accepted into the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington's JTeen Philanthropy program.
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Alumni Community Shows Extraordinary Support
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Over 225 members of the alumni community, including students, parents, grandparents, relatives, and staff, donated to the school this year. We extend a special thank you to the alumni students listed below who participated in the
Give Your Year Initiative
and donated to the Annual Fund. Click here to see a full list of alumni community supporters. A complete listing of 2015-16 donors will appear in our Annual Report.
Benjamin Berliner ('06)
Jillian Berman ('01)
Hilary Brandenburg ('02)
Rachel Brandenburg ('92)
Sara Brandenburg ('99)
Madison Cannon ('08)
Marissa Cannon ('08)
Nathaniel Cannon ('05)
Lily Carhart ('02)
*Current JPDS-NC parents
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Ilan Cohen ('13)
Rachel ('92) and Peter Federowicz*
Anonymous
Eli Kahler ('16)
Ben Kalter ('02)
Eliana Kanefield ('07)
Maxwell Kanefield ('09)
Nathaniel Kanefield ('02)
Shoshana Lew ('92)
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Ari Moskowitz ('08)
Rachel Moskowitz ('02)
Eliane Nieder ('11)
Jonathan Reem ('08)
Isabel Roth ('01)
Sophie Roth ('06)
Jared Sprowls('06)
Sarah Strum ('07)
Elior Waskow ('13)
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