Yeshivat Frisch’s Senior Seminars program has given this year’s seniors the opportunity to go on a variety of enriching trips as well as hearing lectures from top-tier professionals on topics of critical, practical and spiritual import.
Eitan Kastner, co-chair of Frisch’s history department, goes over the historical context of the Jewish American immigrant experience ahead of the seniors’ trip to Ellis Island.
The senior field trips have focused on the American Immigrant Experience, connecting to their past. Students visited Ellis Island, the Lower East Side of New York City and other sites that have resonance for Jewish immigrants to the United States, gaining appreciation and insight into their American Jewish roots, and how immigrants embraced and adapted to their new surroundings.
The chosen lecture topics are diverse and geared toward the seniors’ transition from high school to their future as responsible adults within the general and Jewish community. Topics include: sex crimes/abuse, consent and intimate partner violence (presented by the Brooklyn DA); financial management; the importance of community involvement; finding meaning in Judaism; the agunah crisis and important work of the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot (ORA); and the Gift of Life Marrow Registry.
Michelle Greenberg-Kobrin, a board member of ORA and clinical assistant professor at YU’s Cardozo School of Law, educated students about the challenges that agunot face, what the community can do to help solve the crisis and the importance of the halachic prenup and how it works to prevent get withholding.
Michelle Weber, Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney, educated and sensitized our students about consent.