To view ICJA's Covid-19 guidelines (Updated March 16, 2022), click here.

Sponsored by the Illinois Secretary of State and State Librarian, Jesse White, and the Illinois Center for the Book, Letters About Literature is a statewide reading and writing contest. Students are invited to read a book of their choice, reflect on it, and write a personal letter to its author explaining the impact this work had on them.

Yasher koach to Josh and to English teacher Mrs. Tirzah Kahan on this achievement. Josh's family and Mrs. Kahan will watch Josh accept his award at a ceremony in Springfield on May 11, 2022 IY"H. (For more information about Letters About Literature, click here.)

Students in Mr. Keller's STEM - Engineering class continued to work on individual projects that they have conceived of, planned and are now building to help Keshet students.

Mr. Keller has spread this project to Hannah Sacks and the Skokie Yeshiva; students in all three school are building machines to help make life easier for Keshet students and will have a friendly competition to see whose projects are most effective later this Spring.

Pictured below: seniors Raheli Kreimer and Tal Damelin are building motorized scissors. Senior Abi Rine and Mr. Keller consult about a motorized robot arm that Abi is building. Senior Aytan Czako works with Loyola Academy student Peter Radev, who volunteered at ICJA for this project this week. Senior Aharon Bauman explaining how Arduino open-source electronic platforms work.

The title of this year's ICJA Takes the Stage performance is "From Drab to Fab," illustrating how seemingly ordinary or even undesirable circumstances can be turned into something wonderful. That was certainly the case on Tuesday, March 29, when New Jersey-based singer Devorah Schwartz's flight was delayed, preventing her from speaking to ICJA's female students in person. Instead, she addressed students via Zoom.

"There will always be things that don't go according to plan," Devorah told students - whether in performances or in life. Devorah explained her remarkable path to her current career as a singer, answered students' questions, and shared some of her music.

In addition to hearing from Devorah, students received ICJA takes the stage sweatshirts and spent time practicing for next week's performance.

Pictured below: junior Rina Yahav asking a question; junior Charli Ernstein showing off her new sweatshirt; freshman Aliza Shyovitz; and freshman Eliana Ebert

Inspired by the real Instagram account Tehillim Gems, Mrs. Friedman's 10^th grade Navi students have created their own Instagram account, Tehillim Inspo (click here for the link).

On Wednesday, March 30, students joined Erika's Lighthouse for a special lunch time meeting.

Dr. Anat Geva, Director of Strategic Initiatives at No Shame on U (pictured right), and Ms. Wendy Singer, Director of Programming at No Shame on U, discussed strategies for avoiding speech that stigmatizes mental illness.

Students heard different ways of characterizing people with mental illness and "voted" which way they preferred by moving to one side of the room. One example was "Rachel is a druggie" vs "Rachel has a substance abuse problem."

Dr. Geva and Ms. Singer discussed examples of stigmatizing speech and non-stigmatizing alternatives. Advice included avoiding hopeless phrases such as "Frank is afflicted by anxiety" in favor of neutral wording such as "Frank has anxiety." Students also discussed inappropriate usage of mental health terms - for instance "I'm so OCD" instead of "I like to have things in a certain order" - and strategized ways to discuss topics without using mental health terms where they don't belong.

"Words matter," explained Wendy Singer. She cautioned that the way we speak shapes expectations and urged students to challenge inappropriate uses of mental health terms when they hear them in conversation.

Students in Mrs. Wainkrantz's senior girls' Honors Prophets class created children's books that convey key teachings they learned in Sefer Mishle (Proverbs). (Mrs. Wainkrantz plans to put the books to use over Pesach, reading them to her grandchildren.)

Pictured below: Sarah Friedman and Tamira Halpert holding the books they made.

On some Sunday mornings, students in Rabbi Fliegelman's freshman boys' Talmud class have the option of gathering to daven and learn together along with their relatives at local synagogues.

Last Sunday, March 27, students met at Young Israel of Skokie.

They davened Shacharit, ate breakfast, and shared insights of Torah learning that they learned in their classroom.

Pictured: Ezra Comrov with his father Mr. Aaron Comrov, Ami Weiss with his father Jonathan Weiss, and Jacob Friedman with his grandfather Mr. Steve Erenberg.

When the junior girls in Mrs. Kraft’s Navi classes finished learning all of the perakim describing Eliyahu and Elisha, they created caricatures representing the unique personality and experiences of each Navi.

The caricatures were creative and artistic, and each captured the essence of the differences between the master Navi and his student successor.

This week, while learning Parshat Shoftim, the junior girls in Mrs. Kraft's honors Chumash class had several questions about the jurisdiction of Batei Din today in the United States.

Fortunately, Mrs. Kraft's husband is a Dayan Kavua at the cRc, so they called him in the middle of class, and he graciously answered their questions while on speaker so that the entire class could hear. Thank you to Rabbi Kraft for offering his expertise to our students to enhance their understanding of the eternal relevance of Sefer Devarim!

Students in Mrs. Gottlieb's sophomore Conceptual Chemistry class modeled what occurs on the molecular level to copper sulfate when it is dehydrated and hydrated. Students wrote the chemical equations down before performing the experiment.

Pictured below: Yitzchak Mishkin with his diagrams; Jakob Wortman with his diagrams.

Students in Mrs. Gottlieb's sophomore Honors Chemistry class performed experiments this week involving burning and combustion.

Pictured below: Mrs. Gottlieb demonstrating and experiment; Noa Gavant, Ari Klein and Danielle Zaretsky creating combustible hydrogen gas by mixing zinc and hydrogen chlorine gas; Josh Paskoff, Samuel Polster and Ayelet Appel heating ammonium chloride; and Adam Katz and Gabriel Klein heating copper and observing the reactions.

On Wednesday, March 23, students in Rabbi Broner's accelerated senior boys' Talmud class enjoyed breakfast at Rabbi Broner's house with Rabbi Moshe Unger, who spoke about מצוות ציצית.

Students in Mrs. Yitzhak's sophomore Chumash classes has been learning the mitzvah of challah. In Mrs. Pogonitz's sophomore Chumash class, students learned the original text of the mitzvah with parshanut in Bemidbar.

Last week, both classes came together to put what they'd learned into practice. Students mixed challah dough, davened, and performed the mitzvah of hafrashat challah.

Pictured below: Rotem Lavi, Bella Schwartz and Leeya Starck; Leah Zelden, Jordana Zwelling and Ilana Schwartz; Julia Bellows, Nava Cohen and Gabi Sander; Danielle Zaretsky braiding challah; and Elana Druk and Taly Benzaquen working with Mrs. Yitzhak

This week, the Aces played at Sarachek, and ICJA cheered them on, watching the action in a live broadcast in the gym.

The Aces played well, leading against Ramaz until late in the game, when they sadly lost 34-39. While the Aces did Ida Crown proud in New York, their classmates back in Skokie cheered them with enthusiasm.

After organizing an in-school chess tournament, ICJA chess players hosted a long-awaited chess tournament against Fasman Yeshiva High School. Eight players from each school faced off against one another, matching up in three rounds.

The final score was ICJA with 15.5 (15 wins and one tie) vs the Yeshiva with 8.5 (8 wins and a tie). Yasher koach to ICJA players junior Sam Gurvich and sophomore Jacob Friedman, who were undefeated. After the game, the players congratulated one another and davened Maariv together.

Thanks to junior Ori Wasserman and ICJA Talmud teacher Rabbi Menachem Rosenbaum for organizing the tournament.

Pictured below: junior Sam Gurvich playing against FYHS student Daniel Brown; their game was the final one to conclude, and the rest of the players gathered around to watch; junior Ilan Blumenthal playing against FYHS student Yitzi Brown; junior Ori Wasserman playing FYHS junior Daniel Gurevich.

Pictured below: Junior Sam Gurvich receiving the Dedication Award; Sophomore Benny Lowenthal being honored; Seniors Chuck Moscovitch (l) with Aryeh Schwartz (r), who was receiving the David H. Kandelman a”h Award; Freshman Moshe Tarshish being honored; Dory Marshall receiving recognition; and Moshe Osgood with his Most Improved Wrestler Award.

I didn’t start out to be an English teacher. I was a writer for many years. I wrote stories and articles for a variety of magazines and other publications. I wrote for the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series for many years. The book that came out after 9/11, Chicken Soup for the Soul of America, was my particular responsibility. I also wrote Teen Miracles, part of the Small Miracles book series. 

I have many favorite memories of ICJA. One in particular: My honors sophomore class was acting out a scene from Othello. A student who had always been shy and reluctant to speak in class was playing Emilia. She was standing behind a mechitza curtain that the students were using as a prop and, as she said her lines, she slowly walked out from behind the screen, holding a flashlight up to her face. She was showing how realization of her husband’s (Iago) treachery dawns on her character. The class was silent, mesmerized. Another student watching the scene remarked, “I feel like I should have paid money to see this!” That shy, reluctant student beamed when the class erupted in applause for her! 

Students can submit poetry, prose, essays, photography and more. Click here to submit your work.

(Charlotte's Web is supported by the Susan and Joseph Ament Fund.)

To register, click here.

Celebrate Jewish Community Night at the United Center! Purchase through this special offer and receive an exclusive scarf with every ticket! A portion from every ticket sold will be donated to the Jewish United Fund. Click here to buy tickets.

Over Chanukah, ICJA gave its Class of '21 alumni a Chanukah gift: a brand-new directory that lists ICJA alumni who live in Israel and have graciously offered to open their homes to recent ICJA '21 grads who are currently spending a gap year in Israel this year.

The directory was sent out to the emails of '21 grads that we have on file. If you have any questions or would like to update our contact information to help recent ICJA grads obtain a copy, please contact Dr. Yvette Miller, ICJA Director of Communications, at ymiller@icja.org.

We are still taking submissions from alumni who are willing to host, to include in future copies of this directory.

Win-win! You can support Ida Crown Jewish Academy, while shopping via Smile.Amazon.com