Before the King

Sonia Newell – Development Officer – Alumni & Community Relations

Flashback Friday

Twenty one years ago, in 1992 the book titled Words Around the World was published by Emanuel School. It was an international collection of stories and poems by Jewish children from Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada. If you read the list of contributors, you will see names of some of our current or past parents who at the time, were students at Emanuel, including Michelle Drexler, Jonathan Hirst, Sarah Kummerfeld, Lisa Ross, Lisa Shapiro, Adam Symonds and Daniel Vasin.

Continuing on the book theme…

Author and alumna Ondine Sherman (Class of 1990), sister of current parent Emile Sherman has lived in Israel for many years with her husband and three children. She has now written a chapter titled The Miracle of Love for a new book, Campfire for a Woman’s Heart. Ondine writes: “New book! This is truly an inspirational read. I am honoured and humbled to be a part of this remarkable collection of women sharing stories of loss, injustice, grief, war, disability, disease and ultimately… resilience, love and joy. Thank you to Natalie Stockdale for including me.” You can buy it via the publisher here.

Shalom

JCA raises funds for 25 organisations in the local Jewish communities of NSW and ACT, including our very own Emanuel School. Shalom which celebrates its 50^th anniversary this year, and is a proud founding member organisation of JCA. Shalom aims to incubate community and create an inclusive and vibrant Sydney Jewish community, enriching life, culture, education and ideas through Sydney Jewish Writers Festival, PJ Library, Adamama Urban Farm, Adamama JNR, The Jewish Food Festival and LimmudOz.

Don’t forget LimmudOz 2023 is on this weekend and features members of our Emanuel School community: Adina Roth, Jayme Akstein and Alla Melman.

Raising money for worthwhile causes

A number of staff at Kensington Public School are current or past parents and/or alumni of Emanuel School, including their School Principal Louise Stone, teachers Emma Fredman, Michelle Masnick, Jordan Levin and Rachel Filler-Biondi plus their part-time Business Manager David Green, who is both a past parent and a current grandparent. They held a successful pink breakfast to raise money for Breast Cancer.

Emanuel community members at Kensington Public School: Louise Stone with Lara Levin, Jordan Levin and Emma Fredman.

It was lovely to see photos from our very own Kornmehl Pre-school Biggest Morning Tea held at the end of last month, where more than $3,000 was raised for cancer research and support services. Alumnus, Justin Moddel, was barista extraordinaire. Amongst the many people attending, were alumni Sarah (Krigstein) Robuck and Ellie (Schneider) Bloom now members of our parent community, with their children now students!

Friendship Bakery is seeking mentors

Friendship Bakery are seeking passionate mentors to join their Capacity Building Program team. The program has been created for young adults with disabilities to develop their baking, barista and cafe skills through hands-on experience in the hospitality industry with the goal of gaining employment in future mainstream settings. For more information see the flyer and you can email your resume to maxgencher@sydneyfc.org.au.

You can order amazing items from Friendship Bakery including their new pull-apart Challah Flower.

Friendship Circle Day Camp – volunteers wanted

The week will be packed with lots of fun activities, and a mix of incursions and excursions as part of the ongoing programs run by FC for children and young adults with disabilities. This is a great opportunity to build on existing relationships and make new friends while having lots of fun during the school holidays. It will be based at Moriah College in Queens Park. If you have High School aged children interested in volunteering for this camp please get them to register ASAP:

Teen volunteers (ages 12-18 AND in Years 7-12): click here to register
New volunteers: please also complete all steps of our Teen Volunteer Application

Please email their Day Camp Co-ordinator Sophie Malek with any questions about Camp.

For anyone interested, The Sydney Disability Connection Expo will be held at the ICC in Darling Harbour on Friday 16 June 2023. This is a great opportunity to meet with NDIS providers, ask questions at the ‘Ask and NDIS Export – Support Hub’ – and have fun! In addition to being able to gather information, there will be lots of entertainment at this free event. For more information and to register, click here

We have members in our School Community who have amazing talents in many different areas including various aspects and genres of music:

Coffee Cake and Culture – The Music Podcast

Past parent Andy Bromberger has created the most wonderful music podcast series. Here is the link to her latest episode, The Brass Family with side of Rocky Road Coffee Cake & Culture.

Before The King

Three of the four members of this band are Emanuel alumni, all from the Class of 2016, and it looks like two of them have more than just musical talent. Gabriel Jammy and Daniel Radomsky volunteered to hang the many paintings on display at the recent Community Art Exhibition held at The B’nai B’rith Centre in Kensington. Here is a fun photo of them before the official opening of the exhibition, by which time all the paintings were on show hung the right way up. Together with the band’s third Emanuel alumni member, Dean Smuskowitz, they would love to see members of our School community in the audience at their next gig on Saturday 1 July 2023 at The Lansdowne in Chippendale. Tickets are $20, with a portion of each ticket being donated to the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre. Please note, you need to be 18+ to attend this event.