“It’s also a hidden workout,” says Melissa Avalo, Zumba instructor at the Bergen County YJCC in Washington Township.
Missy, as she is known to her students, makes no secret of her love for the fitness craze.
“It clears your mind, it’s good for your heart, you lose all your stress — and you do it to great music. It’s a big dance party,” she said.
“I see the faces of the students glowing, enjoying the music,” she said. “Even if they don’t get all the moves, or it’s too intense, they can always do it to their own level.”
Just one week after a similar incident in Maywood, a Hackensack synagogue has been spray-painted with swastikas and slogans of hate.
According to Mark Zettler, president of Temple Beth-El, the vandalism was discovered at the Summit Ave. synagogue on Wednesday morning by the shul secretary, Joanne Rose.
“She called me and I told her to call the police,” said Zettler. “Then I went down to the temple.”
The president of the shul, which has some 110 congregants, said the police came immediately, although it appeared that the first officer on the scene had not heard about the incident in Maywood. “The police were very responsive,” he said. “Everybody was sympathetic.”
Fair Lawn English teacher Pam Haug was excited to learn this year that class time for her Literature Connections course had been expanded from seven to eight periods.
“It’s devoted to novels and longer pieces, and we can do more with them,” she said, explaining that she and other Thomas Jefferson Middle School eighth-grade teachers immediately set out to find new materials to add to the curriculum.
“We always read ‘The Diary of Anne Frank,’” she said. “The [Fair Lawn] Memorial Middle School told us they have ‘I Never Saw Another Butterfly,’ so we wanted to find a way to incorporate that, as well.”
Passaic students learn about prejudice at D.C. museum
As a language arts teacher at the Lincoln Middle School in Passaic, Sharon Surloff realized that her eighth-grade students, mostly black or Latino, had grown up knowing little, if anything, about the Holocaust.
Projects to remedy this were already under way. In her class, the teenagers had already studied Elie Wiesel’s “Night” and had been deeply moved, she said. She was also engaging them in discussions, bringing in survivors, taking field trips, and doing Holocaust-related projects.
Something was missing, however.
“As a teacher, I know that providing students with an educational opportunity that will touch them emotionally is the most promising way to turn a school lesson into a life-changing experience,” noted Surloff, who grew up in Fair Lawn.
The vandalism at Reconstructionist Temple Beth Israel in Maywood is both distressing and unacceptable, says Jarah Greenfield, the congregation’s rabbi. It may also offer an important opportunity, however.
Greenfield said that as shocked as people were to see the signs of hatred etched around the synagogue, “The stronger impression was how this desecration so quickly transformed into an opportunity to strengthen our community relationships. The sense of solidarity in the town is truly amazing.”
After the shul board convened an emergency meeting to discuss the damage — swastikas and hate symbols were spray-painted on four areas outside the building — Greenfield reached out not only to town authorities and Jewish communal groups, but to interfaith venues, as well. Their response, she said, “has been nothing less than impressive and beautiful.”
Over the past two years, the number of hate crimes in New Jersey has remained fairly steady, says Etzion Neuer, the Anti-Defamation League’s Director of Community Service and Policy.
Still, said Neuer, “We always want to see it go down. There’s little consolation in seeing it be constant.”
Neuer pointed out that the ADL website maintains a visual database of hate symbols (adl.org/hatesymbols), used frequently by law enforcement agencies but accessible to the public, as well.
At a crime scene, he said, “These numerical and graphic symbols are critical indicators [for law enforcement] of just what they’re dealing with — much the same way as law enforcement learned that numbers scrawled on walls may indicate gang affiliation.”
Daughter of a Pentecostal minister, the 38-year-old became an Orthodox Jew 11 years ago, leaving behind not only her childhood faith, but a blossoming musical career. Now, as the mother of a child with special needs, her journey has led her to the Sinai Schools.
Three years ago, Davids — originally from Southern California and named Daisy Lee — moved to Monsey, where her son, Asher Chaim, who has been diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder, on the autistic spectrum, attended a public school special needs program. When it became clear that he had was not making progress, a therapist suggested that the boy needed something more intensive.
Chanukah will trigger an increased caseload, said Leah Kaufman, executive director of Jewish Family Service of North Jersey. “We’ll easily provide over 100 families with gifts for kids,” she said.
Those gifts, said Kaufman, were obtained “through generous donations by community members,” including, for example, Hebrew school students at the Fair Lawn Jewish Center/Congregation B’nai Israel, who held a toy drive for the agency.
Presents were also received from Flames of Giving, established several years ago by Sari Gross, a congregant at Wayne’s Temple Beth Tikvah. Students at the shul’s religious school collect items for JFS, the Federation Apartments in Paterson, Café Europa (a project for Holocaust survivors), and Paterson elementary schools.
The 71-year-old Clifton resident, now on dialysis, believed until recently that he would receive a kidney transplant from his son. Unfortunately, said his wife, Arlene, “When they did a CAT scan on my son’s kidneys, they found a problem. So now there are two people I’m worried about.”
Arlene, who said her husband is a “young 71,” noted that while he has joined waiting lists at two hospitals, the shortest wait is approximately five years.
“We don’t want to wait that long,” she said, “so we’ve started reaching out to the community. The longer they do dialysis, the more it shortens your life.”
As an engineer for Black and Decker, Matt Holland held 19 patents.
“The plaques hang proudly in my basement,” said the Highland Park resident, now community purchasing manager for the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey’s Kehillah Partnership Initiative.
Holland is the man responsible for negotiating savings for the JFNNJ catchment area’s nearly 160 eligible groups — including synagogues, day schools, affiliated agencies, and community centers. He says his technical knowledge has come in handy.
