Weber Students Win Top Prizes in Israel Contest
The Center for Israel Education held competition in honor of Israel’s 75th anniversary.
After 11 years of being a parent and volunteer at the Weber School, Michal Ilai started teaching students at the private Jewish school in Sandy Springs. Now, after five years of teaching Hebrew and classes on Israel, Ilai has left both Weber and Atlanta to move closer to her mother and family in Austin, Texas. She leaves the school, however, with several of her students awarded top prizes for projects created about Israel.
As part of its focus on Israel’s 75th anniversary this year, the Center for Israel Education held a competition for students to win prizes and recognition for creative projects on Israel. The contest was broken into three age groups: grades 3-5, grades 6-8 and grades 9-12. Although more than 100 entries were received from the U.S. and Canada, at the high school level, entries were received from only Weber.
As Ilai noted, the first three winners were among her Weber students. Taking first prize was Leeya Ilan, 15, of Alpharetta. Second prize went to Renee Vaysman, 17, of Brookhaven, and third prize went to Ezra Adler, 15, of Sandy Springs, and Adam Jacobson, 15, of Dunwoody. Honorable mentions went to Rany Granath, 17, Sandy Springs; Hannah Reznik, 15, Dunwoody; Layla Rothberg, 15, Dunwoody; and Tahel Shantzer, 15, Dunwoody – all Weber students. The top three winners won gift cards while the honorable mentions received certificates.
In the youngest group, Davis Academy students receiving honorable mention included Stella Gold, 10, Sandy Springs, and Charley Solomon, 10, also of Sandy Springs.
CIE asked the students entering from grades 9-12 to “create a visual representation of how one aspect of Israel has changed from 1948 to now.” Students were asked to “include something showing the status in 1948, something from the past year to show the current status, and at least two items from moments in the intervening 75 years. The combination of those visuals shows the process of change.” The students’ creations “could include photos, artifacts, timelines, re-created objects, documents, videos, animation or any other visual representation” that fit the students’ skills and interests.
“I had never heard of CIE before winning,” said Vaysman, who mostly wanted to talk about Ilai and Weber and share her family’s unique story and their embrace of Judaism. Immigrating from Moldova, her grandfather’s dream was to come to the U.S. Every Friday, the family gathers for a Shabbat meal.
“The feeling of family is the most important thing to me,” said Vaysman, and the sense of family is what she found at Weber.
“I didn’t feel a part of the [Jewish] community until I went to Weber,” she said, even though she had attended Jewish day schools prior to high school. Michal Ilai, she said, “makes us feel like family. She teaches us how to love ourselves. In her class, I’m articulate about being Jewish and a proud Zionist,” said the teen, although she’s actually never been to Israel. “My connecting doesn’t stem from going there for me. I feel, as a Jewish person, very connected.”
Ilai explained that her “Israel and Israelis” class was “very small,” but the students were “super interested in exploring Israel.” Part of the idea behind the class was to talk about the purpose of the Jewish community and its organizations like the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta. Ilai brought in speakers from CIE as well as many other groups.
Reflecting on what they studied in the class, one student said he learned “how important Judaism is to me, and that Israel is my second home.” He also wrote that he appreciated the “opportunity to go into depth on what is antisemitism vs. anti-Zionism” and what the differences are and how they overlap.
Another student, Aaron, said the course “educated us on the roots of antisemitism, how to prevent it, and the importance of Zionism.”
Still another student, Ari Gordon, described how he wanted to explore the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism for his Etgar project for the class. “I was struggling with my understanding” of the difference between the two.
“After doing my research and interviewing people, I was able to find how antisemitism and anti-Zionism are related and how both are a prevalent problem in the U.S. Through this project, it made me even a prouder Jew and Zionist by knowing our history and connection to the Land of Israel.”
Ilai is obviously leaving Weber knowing that she’s had an influence on many students.
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