Short Hills Students Wins International Contest, Trip to Israel

A 10-year-old from Short Hills was recently selected to visit Israel where her winning project will be recognized in a Tel Aviv museum.

The fourth-grader Jessie Rievman was invited to Beit Hatfutsot, the Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, to be honor one of 30 winners of the "My Family Story International Competition in Memory of Manuel Hirsch Grosskopf," which the museum sponsors.

The contest encourages students from around the world to submit projects for the competition, which strives to connect young people to their family stories and the Jewish collective memory.

Rievman is a student at the Linda and Rudy Slucker Religious School at Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel in South Orange. Earlier this year, her display was one of two chosen by TSTI leadership to represent the synagogue in the competition. Rievman's project focused on her grandfather's inspiring story of endurance through the Holocaust and the role that soccer played in his survival.

Rievman and her grandmother traveled to Tel Aviv to take part in the museum's celebrations on Thursday, June 13, 2013. The winners' projects are on display to thousands of museum visitors throughout the summer. 

"Our temple family was blessed to utilize the 'My Family Story' curriculum to connect our students to their personal stories, to their family stories, and to the greater story of the Jewish People," said Mindy Schreff, religious school director at the school. "We are so very proud of the thoughtful work done by Jessie and all of our students and their families."