Blog

From August 2-5, 2021, BJE will hold a summer session of L’Dor V’Dor: BJE March of the Living Digital Edition, in partnership with Holocaust Museum Los Angeles (HMLA). The program is designed both to offer 10^th through 12^th grade students a meaningful service learning experience, and to offer isolated and vulnerable Holocaust survivors additional opportunities to share their stories of resilience.

Even amid the challenges of the pandemic, BJE’s 2020-2021 Campaign exceeded its goal thanks to our generous donor community and committed leadership. Services required of BJE, by our community’s schools, educators, parents and students were significantly greater this year. Your generosity helped ensure that BJE was able to respond to additional needs, quickly and nimbly.

Having difficult conversations – with parents, colleagues, employees and supervisors – is part of any early childhood director’s experience. Learning how to successfully navigate these conversations so that each party feels heard, and progress can be made, is critical.

BJE Honors Religious School Educators

Like educators in so many settings, teachers and administrators in part-time religious schools rose to the challenges of this year in a huge way, pivoting overnight to digital platforms, and often providing critical emotional support to students overwhelmed by the pandemic. It is BJE’s great privilege to honor six of these educators.

Counting each day of the seven weeks between Pesach and Shavuot is referred to as Sefirat Ha’Omer – a reference to the “wave offering” of a sheaf of ripe grain (an Omer), brought to the Temple in Jerusalem, from the beginning of the grain harvest in Israel to its conclusion.

The Talmud considers this period to be one of semi-mourning, in memory of a plague (or Roman soldiers) that killed thousands of Rabbi Akiva’s students.

For two weeks, friends of BJE March of the Living helped make a huge impact on social media by donating to BJE’s special Facebook campaign, sharing the campaign with their friends, and holding their own Facebook campaigns. The result of these efforts was the most successful single social media campaign BJE MOTL has held to date, helping raise $30K, exceeding BJE’s goal.

On Wednesday Evening, April 7th, 7:30-9:00pm PST, BJE MOTL and partner SOCAL Shinshinim will host a special Erev Yom HaShoah program, an evening of remembrance featuring Holocaust survivor and artist Gabriella Karin. Gabriella has travelled on the March with BJE’s LA-based delegation in the past, and will share her powerful story of resiliency. Register for this free BJE MOTL Yom HaShoah program.

The Santa Monica Synagogue thanks BJE for recognizing LA-area educators and their successful efforts in pivoting to address Jewish education during the pandemic, and congratulates Lori Daitch, our long-time Director of Education, along with her fellow LA-area Jewish educators.

From March 25-April 9, supporters of BJE March of the Living will hold social media fundraising campaigns to help raise money for BJE’s experiential Holocaust education program for teens.

Though the pandemic has forced International March of the Living to cancel the trip this spring, BJE’s Experiential Education team has been working throughout the year to provide opportunities for students to connect with survivors and learn their stories of survival and resilience.