What do you do when the public school ends at 12:30 p.m. for three days of parent-teacher conferences? That’s when Nefesh Yehudi Academy (NYA), the Jewish after school program for Hebrew language charter school students in East Brunswick, steps in. NYA takes advantage of these shorter days at the charter school to provide extended school days with exciting inspiring programming!

As part of NYA’s middot curriculum, the school is currently focusing on gevurah, the power of one individual to do good and their ability to change the world. To that end, students were visited, via Zoom, by Alex Rapaport, executive director and co-founder of Masbia, who inspired the students by sharing how he came up with the idea of a dignified kosher soup kitchen and how Masbia has been instrumental in helping people, especially in COVID times. Rabbi Simcha Weinstein, author of “Up, Up and Oy Vey” also spoke with the students about how many of the comic book superheroes were created by Jews and how they are modeled after characters from the Torah. To get in the Chanukah spirit, the school took a Chanukah drawing workshop with ANDiDrew.com illustrator Andrew Galitzer from Israel. A fun, inspiring time was had by all.