Summer School

by Ilana Pomerantz

If I took a survey of where people will be on their summer vacations, I am pretty sure that the answer would be anywhere that is relaxing. That’s fine because who wouldn’t want to spend one’s summer away from stress?

What if someone enthusiastically came into school in the fall and told their friends and teachers that they did something academic yet rewarding over their two month break that supplied them with just as much relaxation as a trip to Puerto Rico or a stay at sleep-away camp? This perfectly describes the Drisha Summer High School program for women — indulging in Jewish studies while participating in entertaining activities around the city and forming close friendships.

“Imagine a friendship that you

have from school, formed by doing normal fun teenage activities,” said Naomi Hachen, a participant from last summer. “Now imagine that friendship amplified by sleepovers every night and running around the city together. Now add to that the special things that the madrichot do to bring you together. And now on top of all the normal bonding, imagine that you are learning Torah with the person, really getting to know them on a level that goes deeper than anything else. Those are the kinds of friends you make at Drisha.” Naomi is a senior at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pa.
The program is five weeks long. Students stay at the 92nd Street Y where they have their own bathroom, kitchen and lounge. Lessons last summer included halacha, Gemara, parashat hashavua and midrash. Some of the fun activities during the summer include boating in Central Park, scavenger hunts around the city, visiting museums, riding the ferry, touring Chinatown, attending concerts and Shakespeare in the park, making sushi and visiting with the elderly.

Although I was never on the summer program, for the past three years I was blessed with the opportunity to participate in Drisha’s winter week of learning. The program broadened my knowledge and connected me to the religious lifestyle lacking in my public school setting. This program showed me how to make Judaism a part of my every day life.

“Before I went to Drisha I had no direction in terms of where I was holding religiously because I had not yet found what I thought was the emet,” said my madricha Karen Roelofsen Winkler. “At Drisha I experienced keeping Shabbat for the first time and had many conversations about Judaism with my madrichot which really helped me to find my place within the Jewish community and learn what traditional Judaism had to say about different theological issues. I wanted to give back to the institution that changed my life in such a profound and wonderful way by fostering in the students the same sense of excitement that I originally experienced.”

The Drisha Winter Week is a mini-version of the summer program. Each year we enter the Drisha center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and are immediately brought into icebreakers where we meet the participants, typically 10 to 20 girls, from all over the country. It is very important to warm up to our peers so that we have an excellent stay in a short amount of time. By the end of our stay we are like a family and I think this is really based on the fact that director Wendy Amsellem chooses superb madrichot.
“Drisha is amazing opportunity for girls from all over the Jewish spectrum to come together and learn not just from amazing teachers but from each other,” said Molly Mardit, a freshman at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “I am still in touch with several girls from Winter Weeks past and I wish I were not too old so that I could go again.”

Learning is a very important part of this program and the theme from last winter was, “Me, Myself, and Us: Individual Expression and Communal Responsibility.” Through the study of classic Jewish texts and subjects — including Tanach, Talmud, halakha and philosophy we answered the question: Is the goal of religion to perfect yourself or to create a model community? We studied many examples of communal and individual responsibility in Jewish texts and concluded that there is no single answer to this intricate question. Rather every Jew must balance the needs of the community with those of the individual.
Besides learning with wonderful teachers, we explored the vast and beautiful Big Apple. The highlight of this past year was attending “The Magic Flute” at the Metropolitan Opera. The performing arts are very important to Drisha and should be for Jewish teenagers since music, theater and dance are under appreciated.

Drisha encourages students to explore their creative side. One evening we learned the art of interpretive dance from a professional dance instructor. I always find this activity relaxing and fulfilling because although I am not the best dancer I was able to work in a group and create a dance that made me proud. We also ice skated in Central Park and visited the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side.

Drisha has clearly left a mark on my Judaism. The fact that I chose a program of study when I could have gone on vacation makes me realize the importance of religious education. No matter where we are and over what period of time, we must integrate Torah into our daily lives. The program provided me with the ability to learn basic Jewish texts in a format outside of a school environment.

I look to Drisha as one of the programs that helped me solidify my Judaism during high school because the topics we learned contained a philosophical exploration of subjects that can be applied to our lives. From this past winter I learned that although we worship God and pray for ourselves and our families, we must also always remember that we can set a very fine example for others in our community. By doing this we unify the Jewish people one by one. For example, we learned about Honi the Circle Drawer who demanded rain or he would not leave his circle. This story shows how devoted one can be towards their community. I also feel like I can now be a leader and teach others what I have learned.
“Drisha is an amazing, amazing place not only because of its teachers and their unique ways of examining texts but also because of its incredible learning environment,” said Hachen. “You get to know someone so much better when you are all sitting and learning together and it just makes all the incredible activities that you do all the more fun. To sum it all up the teachers are great, the girls are great, the madrichot are great, and everything is great. There was nothing that I didn’t love about Drisha.”
So I may not have been basking under the warm rays of the sun the past three winter vacations. I was also not relaxing at home and just allowing the days without school to go by.

Yet I spent my vacation participating in something very rewarding as I added to my Jewish knowledge and made a lot of new friends whom I miss very much. Definitely consider Drisha for a summer or winter program. I promise, you won’t regret it.

For more information contact Wendy Amsellem at

E-mail: wamsellem@drisha.org