Volume 31 Issue 30 23 Sep 2022 27 Elul 5782

Primary News

Natanya Milner – Head of Primary School

This week I feel that I aged disproportionately as I moved from being the mother of two school children to the mother of one school child and one graduate. With this milestone comes some significant reflection and gratitude. I feel blessed that we have been supported by passionate and knowledgeable educators who have been committed to Emanuel and its families. It is a moment to take stock and realise how lucky we are to have a place that nurtures and grows our children from ages 3-18 years old – through the wonderful times and the inevitable challenges.

As we move towards Rosh Hashanah and a time of new beginnings, I feel grateful for the community that we share and the support that we offer to each other. I wish you all Shana Tovah and well over the fast.

May you have a wonderful and safe holiday break and a happy and healthy year ahead.

Canteen farewell and closures in Term 4

I would like to offer a final farewell and thank you to our incredible canteen team. We have been blessed to have Gayle Beinart and Miriam Belnick at Emanuel for 10 years. Over this time, they have always gone above and beyond to supply our community with amazing food made with love. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with them and be fed by them. We will miss the entire team – Miriam, Gayle, Andy, Margaret, Jo, Rahel and Janice. Thank you all! This morning we had a K-12 thank you assembly for the Canteen Team and we will recognise their wonderful contributions with a plaque dedicating an area of the new vegetable garden in their honour. For those of you who haven’t seen our new garden area near the Avoca St gate, pop in and take a look!

Next term we will welcome our new canteen operators, Ariel Alkabets and Yaffa Shnirman. Ariel and Yaffa have extensive experience in food-related businesses and cafes and we are lucky to have them taking over our canteen. There will be a break between the two owners and therefore the canteen will be closed in Weeks 1 and 2 of next term. Miriam and Gayle finish up at the end of this term and Ariel and Yaffa will open on Monday 24 October 2022. Please diarise these dates for your planning.

Thank you, Margaret

Next term we welcome Andrew Watt back, so I would like to take this opportunity to thank Margaret Lowe for doing such a wonderful job as Acting Principal over the past term. It has been a pleasure working closely with Margaret, and I have appreciated her guidance and support.

Grandparents and Friends Day

Last week’s Grandparents and Friends Day was a wonderful celebration of both Rosh Hashanah and our beautiful connection with our grandparents. I felt quite overwhelmed by how special it was to be able to welcome our grandparents onto campus and share the celebrations with them. I would like to thank everyone who came for braving the parking issues to spend the morning with us. I would also like to thank Adam Carpenter, Hagit Bar-On, Stacey Rosenfeld, Gena Yeomans and the entire Hebrew and Jewish Studies team for organising a wonderful event. I am also grateful to the staff who supported this day to happen so smoothly – thank you to all the Primary School teachers, Michelle Favero, Belinda Levin, Sonia Newell, Ben Marshall, the maintenance team and Ofer Levy for taking photos. It was a huge, collaborative effort. Click on the Ma Koreh and Pandemic Penpal articles for lots of wonderful photos.

Mazal tov, Ella

Ella and her Rosh Hashanah card design

Mazal tov to Ella Millner, Year 4, whose Rosh Hashanah design features on the School’s Rosh Hashanah card. Thank you to all the Year 4 students who submitted their designs. I believe that it was very hard to choose due to the creativity and care that went into each artwork. Thank you to Ella for her beautiful design.

Project Heritage

I am so excited for this afternoon’s Project Heritage presentation. After a term of interviewing, writing, planning, collaborating and rehearsing, we will see the fruits of the children’s labour at today’s ceremony. I would like to thank this year’s fabulous Living Historians for taking the time to share their stories so generously with us. Thank you to Cedric Amoils, Ellis Cohen, Nora Goodridge, Peter Halas, Brian Lenny, Erna Levy, Harry Chaim Oppermann, Miryam Wise and Gabriel Zipser.

I would also like to thank Adam Carpenter, Leanne Cresswell, Eamon Lukins and Barnaby Wilbury for co-ordinating this event and for their time, dedication and energy to prepare the children for today. Additional mentors who also assisted in the interviews include Josh Aghion, Katie Brody, Karon Rom and Nicolle Rubin. I thank them for their time and support. I would also like to thank Gena Yeomans for the huge amount of time spent organising all the logistics for this event.

Finally, a HUGE thank you goes to our wonderful Year 6 students for their commitment and effort to this program. It is a huge amount of work with challenging expectations. Mazal tov, Year 6!