New Milford—Ruach Lifnei Shabbat (ReLiSh), Solomon Schechter of Bergen County’s Friday afternoon Shabbat celebration, is an event enjoyed by students and teachers as an all-school activity, every week. The concluding activity of the week punctuates an otherwise busy schedule of seemingly never-ending activities and projects for the elementary school students. Shabbat songs and traditional Israeli rikkud (dancing) help sweep everyone up in the excitement and creates joyous energy that the schools exudes. Parents have been invited to join since the school instituted ReLiSh four years ago, but just recently, ReLiSh’s audience has expanded exponentially.
A three-year grant for Jewish technological innovation (SSDS is not allowed to indicate the name of the grant in print) has allowed SSDS to invest in live-stream equipment, as well as the training, staffing, and marketing/outreach to bring this type of interactive programming to an audience much wider than students home sick from school and parents who don’t happen to work on Friday afternoons. The $100,000 grant enabled the school to purchase a Newtek Tricaster 40, an industry-standard live streaming tool.
“Many families in our school are ‘two working parent’ families,” said Ruth Gafni, SSDS’s Head of School. “The live streaming, our podcasting, and our website allow everyone in the family to be part of Jewish enrichment together, to celebrate their Judaism,” she told JLNJ. Gafni explained that geographic and economic obstacles often prevent parents and grandparents from attending school events, such as the recent send-off celebration for the entire eighth grade, who recently left for a 16-day trip to Israel, which also included a stop in Poland.
Now, live streaming via the website Ustream, as well as posting video highlights quickly created afterwards for the school’s YouTube channel, allows families to watch events live and be a part of the excitement—and watch it again together later, if they wish. SSDS teacher and music/video specialist Ilan Marans explained that the system has two cameras, one that is focused on the action, and another that is able to register student and parent reactions (“to pan the audience,” he said), and other things happening in the room.
“It’s transformative because it brings families together from near and far. It also has led to elevated engagement within the school,” said Amy Glazer, SSDS’s director for institutional advancement.
Marans added that the initial engagement by the community has had between 50 and 100 people, members of the SSDS mailing list, watching live presentations, with more watching the event after it has concluded. “From an education perspective, we’re sharing what we’re doing with the community at large,” said Marans.
As another example of why livestreaming is better than traditional video production, he added that an Improv group called the Bible Players came in recently, and that experience was streamed for the benefit of parents and others who might not understand the power of Improv in a learning environment. “It was a great program they put together. It’s Improv-based Jewish education, but it would have been more difficult to explain what it was and how it worked without the video feed,” Marans said. He added that the 20-second delay on the cameras allows for on-the-spot editing that is then much easier to place on YouTube when the event has concluded. “I am basically editing the video while the event is happening,” he said.
Marans also advises students who run “Schechtunes” radio, a podcasting program that is hosted on the school’s website and one that also takes advantage of the technology purchased from the grant for Jewish content innovation.
For now, the weekly ReLiSh events are something that parents at work, grandparents far away, students at home, and other members of the SSDS family can enjoy together. They may not be able to celebrate Shabbat together in person every week, but, with the miracles of modern technology, they are able to share ruach lifnei Shabbat.
By Elizabeth Kratz
