Welcome to the second year of Beit Sefer of Orange County, New York,our combined Religious School between Monroe Temple Beth-El and Temple Beth Shalom. During our first year, collective boards successfully worked diligently to include parents in this process, ensuring that our standards of excellence in teaching and learning continued to be met. Rabbi Shinder and Rabbi Lerner met regularly to confirm that our calendar, curriculum, teachers, special events, locations and communication were running smoothly and effectively.

Perhaps the two most important things to look out for in this second year ahead are the location of Beit Sefer on Sundays and the calendar of events, as there are special experiences (chavayot) and Shabbat dinners and services where we expect families to join us in celebration. You will continue to receive a weekly email from beitsefer182gmail.com. This will be our primary form of communication that will send out weekly reminders of the location of school, as well as upcoming events. Rabbis Shinder and Lerner, and Administrator Lauren Vitkovsky will be monitoring this email. We will also continue to use the Remind app. We have created Google Classroom materials for Hebrew instruction, and materials for our Sunday curriculum will be established next. Information for both curriculum and the schedule of programs and locations are available through Google Classroom.

As a reminder, please register your children ASAP at https://forms.gle/TsUo4au5AP42ZY916

The emails and phone numbers you input will be the ones we use to contact you. One critical part of that registration is to choose whether your child will attend Hebrew instruction in person at Monroe Temple Beth-El on Tuesdays OR via Zoom with Temple Beth Shalom on Thursdays. You can only register for one. The instruction for both days will be from 4:30-5:45 pm. All of our students will combine to learn together for in-person instruction on Sundays. In person experiences for Shabbat dinners, services and Mitzvah projects will also take place as one school.

Please keep in touch with us, as we want to meet all of your needs to the best of our ability. If something is a challenge, we need to know so we can attend to it and take any necessary action. Your children are amazing and we want them to enjoy their time here at Beit Sefer of Orange County as they arrive at a fuller understanding and appreciation of their heritage and the beautiful rituals, traditions, stories and community Judaism has to offer. We hope that they have fun and make some new friends, too.

For the past seventy years, we have worked to fulfill a promise to our community: To help shape the young minds of our children toward a Jewish identity.

We provide experienced and knowledgeable teachers who truly care about their students. Small classes enable each child to be known as an individual. We use interesting and motivating texts and materials. School includes hands-on projects, Mitzvah Days and other acts of Tzadakah, class Shabbats and unique services. There are frequent opportunities to meet with other Jewish students, and visit places relevant to our Jewish culture and history through group activities and trips. We are a small school within small temples, but we accomplish much.

We are proud of our endeavors and of the accomplished, successful adults who have graduated from our school through b’nai mitzvah and confirmation. And we are especially proud that many of our young temple members choose to continue as members and leaders of our youth group. These are the children who mentor our youngest students – they are our role models. They are helping to shape the future of our synagogues and the future of Reform Judaism.

Your Board of Education takes pride in our teachers and students and we thank God, our parents and our community for providing us with such a treasure of outstanding young people. We can only pray that our combined religious school and the collaborative efforts of Temple Beth Shalom and Monroe Temple Beth-El continue to grow and prosper. We dedicate ourselves to assisting in this solemn endeavor.

Shalom,
Rita Laskin, Chairperson, Board of Education