Parent Spotlight Mrs. Goldstein

I am a mother of four children. Two of them were born in Israel, and two were born in New York City. We used to live a very wealthy lifestyle. We always sent the children to Jewish schools, and Judaism was important for us. The focus wasn’t so much on Judaism as it was on continuing a Hebrew and Israeli life. The children went to an Israeli Jewish preschool until we moved to Las Vegas, and we put them in an Israeli school there. The school had a lot more focus on Jewish education for the younger grades, but not as much for the older grades. It also became more secular as time went on. In 2017, we had a traumatic experience and entered a new phase in our lives where as a mother, I had to fight for everything for my children. I was not able to keep my children in the same school, and it was not the best fit for them anymore. I was able to enroll the children in a school in Las Vegas called Solomon Schechter, where we were the most religious family in the school. In the middle of the year, the school went bankrupt, and I only had a couple of weeks to find them a new school.

Public school was my last resort option, because Judaism had started to become much more important for me. I was starting everything from the beginning, and my family was much more involved in the shul and the Jewish community. I felt an urge, a need, that my children needed to be in a Jewish school. That would be the best fit for the children. I got to know Rabbi Orlowek, and he introduced me to a few other people from Chinuch Yehudi who were our angels. They assisted us in continuing Jewish education for my kids. They are now going to start their third year in Yeshiva Day School. Sending four children to a Jewish school is very expensive, and it’s mainly due to Chinuch Yehudi that it is possible.

My oldest son had some trouble with the transition between the different Jewish schools and he fought a little bit. But from the second year, he decided he was just going to do his best. He is in his bar mitzvah year, and it is very important to him to get A pluses and bonuses in tests, and just to do the best that he can. My daughters are in love with their teachers, their friends, and their schoolwork. The teachers are just amazing, I could never ask for better teachers. They give all of themselves for their students, treating them like their own children. I used to teach, so it’s very important for me as a mother that when I send my children to school the teachers see the children not just as a student but as a human being, and give them so much attention and love.

When the coronavirus started, it was unbelievable to see the school’s response. On Friday, the principal decided that all the children should go home with their personal chromebooks. On Sunday, we received an email that due to the epidemic, the school will prepare as quickly as possible to begin learning from home. It took them one more day to prepare the teachers, and remote learning began on Tuesday. The school, administrators, and teachers did a phenomenal job implementing learning in a new environment. We separated the children into different parts of the house so they could focus, and so that I could keep an eye on them and help them when they needed it. Without the school being on top of things, it would not have been possible. Every day started with davening, and it was so nice because the whole house was filled with the sound of children praying. On Friday, they had school meetings where they sang Shabbat songs, and all the classes shared what they did during the week.

I grew up in a family that went to shul for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but that’s it. I came to the United States, and I started to learn about so many kinds of temples and synagogues, and it was very weird for me. All I knew was Orthodox, and we kept a little bit of it. I was the one who started going to shul and taking on more mitzvot to become observant. The fact that my kids go to a religious school makes us stronger in our observance at home. It’s easier to observe more rules at home than if my children would go to public school. It’s so nice to hear the kids saying birkat Hamazon, and they want to talk about parshat hashavuah. They learned about tefillah and Talmud and the Ashkenazi way of davening. It’s nice to see that it’s going to a good place in their heart – and it should be, because we’re Jewish.