For his Bar Mitzvah project, Bradley Friedman chose to administer the First Annual Ohef Sholom Temple Religious School Essay Contest. All students in grades one through 10 were invited to participate. The topic for this year’s contest was:
“Our Temple was founded in 1844! That will make it 175 years old in 2019. We want it to be a wonderful, active and inspiring place for many more years. What do you think we can do to make this happen? What can we do for our members, families, students and community that will keep you involved even when you are a grownup and have children of your own?”
The contest kicked off in February with Bradley making an announcement at Religious School and it was included in the weekly Religious School updates with a deadline of Friday, March 14.
Rules and parameters of the contest included that entries should be between 250 and 500 words; that all entries must be 100% the work of the student; and that anyone attending OST Religious School was eligible to submit one entry.
Bradley promoted the contest, designed the scoring rubric, and reviewed all the entries (45 or 50 of them). Kitty Wolff, Religious School educator, Rabbi Arthur Steinberg and Gail Bachman, OST administrator, were among the judges. He summarized the best recommendations into a final report, which is being prepared for the Temple’s board to review, and of course, he presented the top three winners with their awards at the closing assembly on Mother’s Day at temple.
The winners and their prizes are:
• First place: Helene Schulwolf, fourth grader, $100 VISA gift card
• Second place: Alisa Kosovsky, eighth grader, $50 VISA gift card
• Third place: Ayden Cohn, eighth grader, $25 VISA gift card
Bradley, a sixth grader at Nansemond Suffolk Academy, says he is quite excited that he can enter his own essay into the 2015 contest. He is the son of Debbie and Mark Friedman.