‘Growing Greatness’ Gala focused on students, food

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO – The theme of Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School (SSDHDS)’s 52^nd fundraising gala on Sunday, June 7, was “Growing Greatness” and what better venue to stage it than at the Hall of Champions in Balboa Park, a sports museum conceived and implemented by the late Bob Breitbard, who was an active member of the Jewish community.

Highlights of the dinner included honoring of Rafael “Rafa” Guerrero, a grandparent at the school who volunteers to teach pupils how to garden; and Naomi Maisel, a former Soille student  who has implemented a program at Emory University in Atlanta, where she now studies, to donate unused food from the campus to local charities in Atlanta.  That project that won her recognition in Georgia as a “sustainability innovator.”

While food thus was on everyone’s mind at the kosher dinner, other “growers” also were recognized.  For example, Margrit Bitton, who is retiring after ten years as director of SSDHDS’s Paula Tannen Pre-school, received a standing ovation and an award during a ceremony in which she was recognized both by her predecessor Faye Snyder and her soon-to-begin successor Rachel Seidle.   Applause for a job well done also was heartily accorded to outgoing board president Marilyn Williams as she handed over the gavel to incoming president Geoffrey Berg.

Speeches and a video presentation complemented written commentaries in the school’s annual calendar and journal for 2015-2016, which were distributed to the eager hands of hundreds of attendees.  The calendar appropriately was decorated on its front cover with a tree of life.

Rabbi Dov Moskowitz wrote about Rafa Guerrero, grandson of a Sephardic Jew who moved from Istanbul, Turkey to Mexico City in the 1920s and helped to form the Sephardic community in Mexico’s capital.   Guererro was born in the City of Tijuana, San Diego’s cross-border neighbor, moving to San Diego when he was five years old.

When his own grandchildren attended Soille, Guerrero “was impressed with the positive influence the school was having on his grandchildren and remarked that he wished he had gone to a ‘school like this,’” wrote Moskowitz.  “Rafa became more involved in the school and proposed to teach a hands-on, organic gardening project where students could learn the progression of nutritious soil, nurture, and hearty plants.  What he did not anticipate was the extent of his own religious and spiritual growth through being part of the school community.  He deeply understands how nature and Judaism work in tandem.  ‘Judaism allows you to live a balanced life physically and mentally,’ Rafa said, ‘and agriculture helps people have more belief and trust in Hashem and become closer to him.’”

Maisel, who graduated eighth grade in 2008 from the Orthodox day school, was interviewed by Alysa Kaplan upon a visit to her alma mater.  “Of special interest to Naomi were the gardens and planting projects the students have been working on through the school year, since she has spent 7 months in South America working on organic farms,” Kaplan wrote. “Naomi said that teaching kids how to grow their own fruits and vegetables is ‘so great because as they (the students) grow, they will be comfortable with nature and understand how it is a healthy and critical part of their lives.”

Kaplan’s article went on to say that Maisel is now a senior at Emory and is studying anthropology “with a focus on food insecurity and public health.  As a freshman she was bothered by all the unused food that was being wasted on a daily basis. She went to the campus restaurants and asked if they would be willing to donate the uneaten food. This led to Naomi’s cherished accomplishment of launching a new organization on campus to recover unused food, to prepare meals for local charities and involve a large group of fellow students who are inspired by her example.”  As a result of her efforts, Emory University now boasts a Campus Kitchens Project “with Maisel as student president.”

In the same calendar/ journal, Rabbi Simcha Weiser, the headmaster of the school, essayed that “the historian Paul Johnson was once asked to pinpoint the greatness of the Jewish people, and responded that ‘Judaism has managed better than any other culture known to me, the delicate balance between individual responsibility and social responsibility.’  With this viewpoint in mind, we can correctly focus our celebration on the successes in growing within each of our student’s greatness of personal integrity alongside deep feelings of communal belonging.”

Weiser added: “Tonight’s honorees also provide exemplary role models for our students to learn from.”  Maisel, he noted, “devotes her considerable talents and energies to redirect food to others who are hungry, to creating community gardens, to advancing the understanding of neuroscience to promote health and wellbeing.

“Rafa Guerrero,” he continued, “communicates his love and respect for Hashem’s world through his tireless efforts to connect our students with the wonders of nature and to teach the meaning of being a responsible guardian of the earth.  Rafa brings both wisdom and passion to his gentle interactions with our students.”

In an additional essay, Rabbi Meir Cohen, the SSDHDS principal, suggested that both Guerrero and Maisel “show us to use our efforts to maximize the world we are given.”  SSDHDS students “practice this value from a young age through middle school,” Cohen wrote.  “In every aspect of their experience at school they absorb and live appreciation.  They learn about the Jewish icons so integral to our being, they practice how to communicate with each other, they write about the influences in their lives, they connect to family by interviewing grandparents, they bond with younger children by reading to them, they put on productions and fairs to educate and entertain.  There is no end to the opportunities students have to express their appreciation of the world in which we live.”

Britton, the outgoing preschool director, wrote: “Greatness grows out of being great in little things. I look at my teachers and it is the little things that no one notices that makes them exceptional.  Our teachers are the heart and soul of the school.  They work tirelessly to instill Self Respect and a Sense of Belonging in the children so that one day they will grow to greatness themselves.  It takes special people to work with the delicate lives that are entrusted to us by the parents, and I thank each and every one of you for giving of yourselves endlessly and joining me on the journey of discovery.”

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  You may comment to him at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com, or post your comment on this website, provided that the rules below are observed.

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