Once Upon a Time…07.29.2016

The Baltimore Jewish Times publishes unidentified photographs from the collection of Jewish Museum of Maryland each week. If you can identify anyone in these photos and more information about them, contact Joanna Church by email at [email protected]

Date run in Baltimore Jewish Times:  July 29, 2016

PastPerfect Accession #:  2000.057.017

Status: Unidentified! Campers and counselors at Bais Yaakov camp, circa 1955.

Once Upon a Time…01.26.2018

The Baltimore Jewish Times publishes unidentified photographs from the collection of Jewish Museum of Maryland each week. If you can identify anyone in these photos and more information about them, contact Joanna Church by email at [email protected]

Date run in Baltimore Jewish Times: January 26, 2018

PastPerfect Accession #: 1993.037.023

Status: Partially identified! Sam Esterson is the camper in the back row, third from right (next to a counselor). Do you recognize any of the other campers and counselors at this Bais Yaakov Day Camp, c. 1955?

Thanks To: Morton Esterson

13,000 Bais Yaakov Girls At Barclays For Sara Schenirer Tribute

It was a sea of pleated skirts today Mar. 17, 2015 at Barclays Center as over 13,000 Bais Yaakov girls, mothers and grandmothers gathered together to observe the 80th yahrtzeit of Sara Schenirer.

Parking was banned on Flatbush Avenue during the memorial gathering as 270 busses flooded the area bringing participants for a morning of…

This morning, I wrote the final scene of my play. It's 40 pages, 23 scenes, and 11,000 words long, and as I typed "~END~" I felt this weird tingling sensation in my stomach. I had done it. The play was complete.

Not that I know from experience, but finishing a large writing project seems to me a bit like giving birth. You work and work and at the end, if you're lucky, you have a beautiful stack of pages (or a beautiful baby) and an absolutely amazing sense of accomplishment. This is the first big writing thing I've ever actually finished (my hard drive is littered with the ghosts of novels past) and I still can't believe it. Holding that thick stack of papers in my hand made me feel almost dizzy. Really? The procrastinator and says-she'll-do-it-but-never-does girl finished her script? No way! This is one for the record book, folks. 

Although I had the most basic version of the plot in my head for the past two years, it wasn't until my friend came up with a way of expanding it this July that I was able to start writing. (Technically, though, I didn't start writing until I came back from camp August 20th.) I wrote and edited the entire thing, start-to-finish, in just under a month so I guess it was like a miniature Script Frenzy. :) 

I'm hoping (wishing, dreaming, praying) that my school will produce it. (I wrote it with a Bais Yaakov audience in mind, after all!) Today was one of the days that the woman who does the play every year comes in to teach, so I just had this insane desire to finish and give it to her. I wrote the final scene and a half on the bus ride, before davening, after davening, and during class in a mad rush and somehow finished and printed it before she left. Now all that's left is to wait for her to read it. And wait. And wait. 

Even if it gets rejected, I don't regret writing the script at all. It was a great project, a lot of fun to write (sometimes) and through it all I really think I learned a lot. And hey, if this one goes over well IY''H there will be a second script on the way soon... while I was at camp I found a book that I think would make an absolutely excellent play adaption. ;) 

Hallooo and welcome to my new blog, Adventures of a TOJG (Teenage Orthodox Jewish Girl). Considering that many Orthodox Jews (not including Modern Orthodox) think the Internet is the source of all things evil, there is definitely an absence of OJ presence on the web, including on Tumblr. This is my humble attempt to start rectifying that. 

My plans for this space including clarifying general Jewish misconceptions, answering questions should any come in, and just blabbing about what it's like to be a TOJG attending a small Bais Yaakov school [more on that later].