Tekes Maavar! 

Elisheva Raskas | New Rochelle

Upon transitioning from Yom Hazikaron to Yom Ha’atzmaut, the snif tzevet of New Rochelle organized a Tekes Ma’avar. Due to evident constraints, the tekes took place using Zoom as its medium. Each staff member had a role, whether it was reading a poem in Hebrew, a paragraph in English, or compiling various videos, our team worked as a unit. The touching program highlighted the stories of Roi Klein, Uriel, and Eliraz Peretz. We shifted gears as one of our members began to recite Hallel. If that did not suffice, the shul enjoyed a live concert by Eli Levin, in which families sang along and danced to his guitar. To top it all off, we aired a video of previous members of our community sending their best wishes from Israel! Not only did our tekes educate our community about the various yamim, but it enabled our shul to come together during a challenging time. Our Bnei Akiva tzevet maintained a sense of normalcy in New Rochelle, thus radiating positive energy and excitement to our community.

Binyamin Madowicz | Woodmere

Today started off with an amazing musical hallel led by the principal of DRS yeshiva high school. Then throughout the day, some of my teachers taught different things about the state of Israel. For example, my Gemara teacher brought many different sources about whether there is a mitzvah to live in Israel. Then later in the day, we had Israeli Journalist and news reporter, Sivan Rahav Meir being interviewed by some of the seniors in my school. Mrs. Meir talked about being on shlichut with the Mizrachi Movement and also many different events that she covered while in the US. Lastly, all the HALB schools joined together over zoom for a concert by the one and only Aryeh Kunstler. All of these events made this Yom Haatzmaut an inspiring and fun day.