Rabbi Pein, Dir. of Congregational Learning Blog

When you go upstairs to the CJL school hallway, you may notice the "Punim Pages" or "Face pages" (punim means face in Yiddish) posted on our school bulletin boards.  This is a project we begin at the start of school.  Each student completes a page with their picture on it and fills out a few lines of personal information. When the entire class has completed their pages, we then post the class pages on the bulletin boards.  We then send home a book with each student of all the completed pages of students in that grade and a class list  which includes names, addresses and phone numbers. Although this project is labor and time intensive, we want our students to know that they matter to us, each and every one of them.  And we also want them to connect with each other, to get to know the students in their grade.  We want the CJL to be a place where our students create friendship and connection.  So, take a moment, study these Punim pages when you can, and encourage our CJL students to study them, too so that we get to know one another better and we can create a more connected community!