News from Ramaz School

Baruch Dayan Emet: Ramaz Mourns Morah Devorah

Ramaz School — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:26:51 +0000

Deborah Wrubel, z”l

The Ramaz family mourns the untimely passing of Ms. Deborah Wrubel, Morah Devorah. For more than 35 years she taught hundreds of children in her kindergarten class. Often she had the children of her students as a second generation teacher. Several years ago she was honored by Ramaz as Educator of the Year. Her service to Ramaz was marked by exceptional wisdom, constant warmth, and unlimited love for the children and their parents. Her soul will forever be bound up in the history of our school.

The funeral service was held this morning Friday, May 17. Shiva will be observed at the home of Ms. Wrubel’s brother, Harvey Wrubel, in Teaneck until Monday. Shiva will continue in Manhattan on Tuesday through Thursday morning. Please contact newswire@ramaz.org for addresses and schedule information.

May the family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

We encourage our students and alumni to leave comments to this post with their memories of Morah Devorah.

To make a contribution to Ramaz in memory of Ms. Deborah Wrubel, please click here.

Parents Council Spring Event: 5/22

Ramaz School — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:19:26 +0000

$1,000 Louboutin shopping spree? Front row Giants tickets? Eight nights in Israel? You can win all of this and more at the Ramaz Parents Council SPRING EVENT!

Wednesday, May 22
7:30-10:30PM
Ramaz Upper School (60 East 78 Street, NYC)
Click here to join and share the Facebook event

The Spring Event auction is the Parents Council’s primary source of fundraising for the year. All proceeds help Parents Council support extra Shabbatons, Matza Factory Trips, Shofar Blowing programs, trips, guest lecturers, Project NATAN, and much more.

RSVP now for best ticket bonuses! The night of the event, additional Chinese Auction tickets will be sold at face value.

$36: 1 Admission + $25 Chinese Auction Ticket
$72: 2 Admissions + $50 in Chinese Auction Tickets
$150: 2 Admissions + $100 in Chinese Auction Tickets
$250: 2 Admissions + $300 in Chinese Auction Tickets
$500: 2 Admissions + $750 in Chinese Auction Tickets
$750: 2 Admissions + $1,000 in Chinese Auction Tickets
$1,000: 2 Admissions + $1,500 in Chinese Auction Tickets

This year’s event will feature a Chinese auction only, with no online bidding or live auction component. Chinese Auction tickets are either $25, $50 or $100 each for a chance to win many fabulous prize packages. Each ticket you buy gets you one chance to win the selected prize.

View highlights of the fabulous prizes online! Many more fabulous prizes will be featured exclusively at the event. If you plan to attend in person, please click here to reserve your event admission package with BONUS Chinese Auction tickets.

Can’t attend? You can still win! Click here to purchase Chinese auction tickets ONLINE for selected packages. You need not be present to win. Online ticket sales close at 5:00 PM EDT on Wednesday, May 22!

Auction Chair: Ety Shasha
Event Chair: Racquel Hamway
Committee: Michal Basha, Sharon Greengrass, Lisa Low, Ariel Sebag, Esther Symonds, Rachel Vorchheimer

We look forward to seeing you there!

MS Celebrates Earth Day

Ramaz School — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 20:07:57 +0000

Monday, April 22, is Earth Day, and the Ramaz Middle School will be marking it in many different ways. There will be a special D’var Torah, we’re turning off the lights for a period, and tzedakah will go to an environmental cause. We have a special speaker for the 7th and 8th graders about green, energy-efficient buildings, and the 6th graders will be sharing their biome projects with the 5th grade during lunch. Other activities—both in and out of the classroom—are also planned.

At the suggestion of students, and with the endorsement of the Administration, we are recommending special clothing for Earth Day. All students are requested to wear blue denim bottoms and blue, green, or brown tops. Blue denim is recyclable and the colors for the tops represent the sky and the earth.

Yom HaAtzmaut: MS Zimriah & US “Aspirations” Torah Journal

Ramaz School — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:51:48 +0000

The long-awaited Middle School Zimriah is going on right now at the Park Avenue Synagogue. Not there? Click here to view the live stream!

Click to watch the live stream (9:30-11am EDT, Tuesday, April 16, 2013)

And the Ramaz Upper School is proud to announce the publication of this year’s Yom HaAtzmaut Torah journal issue, Aspirations.

Click to view the new issue!

Lag Ba’Omer Family Fun Day, 4/28

Ramaz School — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:00:58 +0000

The Ramaz Parents Council presents Family Fun Day! On Sunday, April 28th (Lag ba’Omer 2013), from 1:00-4:00 PM, we’re bringing together the entire Ramaz community (students of ALL ages, parents, grandparents, faculty and staff) for this AMAZING day of professionally staffed activities. Rain or shine!

The venue is Coleman Country Day Camp in Merrick, NY (click here for driving directions). Admission INCLUDES roundtrip bus transportation from Ramaz: departs 85th St. at 12:00 PM, returns 5:00 PM.

Entrance also includes: * BBQ lunch by Prestige Caterers * Rock climbing * Ziplining * Boating * Miniature golf * Horseback riding * Arts and crafts * Archery * Inflatables (moon bounce!) * Ball pits * Mini train ride * Face painting * Gaga (Israeli Dodgeball) * Parent-child activities * Souvenir backpack * Much, much more!

$25 per person / $125 max per family
Complimentary admission for Ramaz faculty/staff and their families!

Online registration is now open! RSVP now: www.ramaz.org/funday

Click here for the Facebook event!

Roman Vishniac Exhibition: Ramaz Special Viewing and Tour, 4/16

Ramaz School — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 18:08:29 +0000

The Museum of the International Center of Photography’s current exhibition Roman Vishniac Rediscovered brings together, for the first time, four decades of work by an extraordinarily versatile and innovative photographer.

Vishniac (1897-1990) created the most widely recognized and reproduced photographic record of Jewish life in Eastern Europe between the two World Wars. These celebrated photographs were taken on assignment for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the world’s largest Jewish relief organization, from 1935-38. This exhibition, organized by ICP Adjunct Curator Maya Benton (spouse of Ramaz graduate Daniel Reich ’94), also introduces recently discovered and radically diverse new bodies of Vishniac’s work and repositions his iconic photographs of Eastern Europe within the broader tradition of 1930s commissioned social documentary photography.

Roman Vishniac traveled throughout Eastern Europe in the years just before the war taking extraordinary photos that have since come to be associated with the standard of Jewish life that was ultimately wiped out. Yet few are aware of the “secret” behind his photos and what dictated his choices of what to photograph. Now, for the first time, hundreds of his photos have been gathered in one place, including new bodies of work never publicly seen. It’s a collection that some of us have been waiting for years to be exhibited — a fitting conclusion to the Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut commemorations, and a fitting introduction to a world that is no more.

Articles and reviews:

The Ramaz family is invited (free of charge) to a private viewing and curated tour on Tuesday, April 16th, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be provided. Space is very limited and response has already been strong, so please RSVP as soon as possible to Shyla Malloy at malloys@ramaz.org or 212-774-8000 x6215.

Even after our event sells out, we encourage all Ramaz students and parents to attend the exhibition before it closes on May 5. General admission is $14; $10 students and seniors (with valid ID); free to children under 12. Admission on Friday evenings (5–8 pm) is free or voluntary contribution. The Museum of the International Center of Photography is located at 1133 Avenue of the Americas (at 43rd Street) in NYC.

Sam Gyenes Memorial Basketball Tournament, 4/11 and 4/14

Ramaz School — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 23:16:16 +0000

Sam Gyenes ’89, z”l

Come cheer on our Boys’ Varsity Basketball Team at the…

Annual Sam Gyenes Memorial Basketball Tournament

Thursday, April 11
6:45PM – Ramaz vs. YDE
8:30PM – SAR vs. TABC
Upper School Gym

Sunday, April 14
11:30AM Consolation Game
1:00PM Alumni Game
1:30PM Championship Game
Upper School Gym

Sam Gyenes z”l, a member of the class of ’89, died at age 16 at the end of his sophomore year at Ramaz. Sam, his classmates noted in their yearbook, would have asked people to carry on in joy and happiness, touch many lives, look for people in need of friendship and try to build a better world.

Free admission. All Ramaz families and friends are invited to come enjoy the games and support our teams.

GO RAMS!!!

VIDEO: Divrei Torah for Pesach

Ramaz School — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 11:00:46 +0000

With the coming of Pesach, we want to share with all of you—our students, parents, colleagues, and friends—a unique collection of video divrei Torah on the Haggadah by Rabbi Lookstein and some of the members of our faculty. How amazing it would be to be able to spend Pesach together as one large community as was done in the Bet HaMikdash! Until then, however, technology now enables us to come one step closer to adding that personal connection to our seder preparations by enabling us to share orally what could only have been done before in writing. In so doing, we perhaps come closer to being able to fulfill the mandate to “tell” one another the story of our common past and our shared destiny.

You can find a playlist of all of the Haggadah divrei Torah at this link, or watch the embedded version below:

You can find a list of other shiurim on Pirkei Avot and Massekhet Sanhedrin that have been used in Talmud classes this year by looking on the right-hand column of the RamazTorah YouTube page.

Our collective thanks to Rabbi Yigal Sklarin for his efforts in pulling this material together.

3/19: The Ramaz Theatrical Society Presents Neil Simon’s RUMORS

Ramaz School — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 10:00:23 +0000

Come see the newest show to hit the Ramaz stage, RUMORS!

One public performance only:
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
7:30pm
Ramaz Upper School
60 E. 78th St., NYC
Admission is FREE!

Directed by Caroll Goldberg
Assistant Direction by Shoshana Edelman ’14
Set Design/Costumes by Barbara Abramson

Four couples are at a townhouse of a deputy of New York City mayor, and his wife to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. The party never begins because the host has shot himself in the head (it’s only a flesh wound) and his wife is missing. His lawyer’s cover-up gets progressively more difficult to sustain as the other guests arrive and nobody can remember who has been told what about whom. Doors slam and hilarity abounds as the couples get more and more crazed!

Cast (in order of appearance):
Chris Gorman—Isabel Dicker
Ken Gorman—Aaron Kohl
Claire Ganz—Rachel Kastner
Lenny Ganz—David Schwerdt
Cookie Cusack—Tova Weinberger
Ernie Cusack—Max Deutsch
Cassie Cooper—Elizabeth Bier
Glenn Cooper—Benjamin Oscar Shiff
Police Officers—Jack Hartstein and Daphna Ash

Click here to join the Facebook event!

3/14-3/19: “Town Hall” Parent Open Sessions with Paul Shaviv Continue

Ramaz School — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 09:45:08 +0000

Mr. Shaviv and friend

Over the past few weeks, Mr. Paul Shaviv has been holding open sessions with parents in each division. These informal meetings are meant to give parents a chance to meet and chat personally with the new Head of School. There are no agendas for these meetings, and the conversation is free-flowing.

The series of six sessions began on February 26 and included a “virtual” teleconference session on March 4, held via GoToMeeting. The number of participants throughout the school is anticipated to total 100 or more parents by the end of the series.

The remaining sessions are:

Thursday, March 14, 8:00-9:00 AM (Lower School/ECC)
Thursday, March 14, 7:30-8:30 PM (Middle School) Update: For unexpected reasons we have had to cancel the March 14 evening session, with sincere apologies for any inconvenience. Please feel free to join the Lower School evening session on March 19.
Tuesday, March 19, 7:30-8:30 PM (Lower School/ECC)

Refreshments will be served (coffee and muffins for the morning meetings; sushi and wine for the evening meetings).

The meetings will take place in the buildings indicated, but all parents are welcome to attend any session convenient for them. Please RSVP to Ms. Karen Cobham at cobhamk@ramaz.org at least 24 hours prior to the meeting you would like to attend!