Jewish Poets-Jewish Voices to Feature San Diego Jewish Academy Students

LA JOLLA, California — Several years after Jewish Poets-Jewish Voices was inaugurated, one of the programs in the series became designated for the work

of students, a showcase for student poets in our community. This year, that program will be on Zoom, Sunday, March 27, at 3:30 p.m. Sara Appel-Lennon, co-chair of this event, will serve as moderator.

Although there has been representation from other schools, the one school that continues to send participants to the student showcases is the San Diego Jewish Academy. At the Academy,  poetry writing is an integral part of the curriculum. This year, once again, Sara Hansen, Humanities English chair, enthusiastically responded to the call. High School English teacher, Linda Rosenberg, helped in the selection.

Hansen recruited three poets from the middle school and six poets from the high school for the featured poets segment of the program. Although in past years, the student program has had participants from the Soille Hebrew Day School, the Chabad Hebrew Academy, the Community High School, and several congregational religious schools, perhaps because of the proximity to Purim
or the pandemic challenges, the San Diego Jewish Academy may be the only participating school from San Diego.

As of now, the San Diego Jewish Academy students to be featured are: 7th grader, Eila Ganel; 8th grader, Hannah Gutman; 8th grader, Alexandra Lerner; 9th grader, Kayla Scott; 9th grader, Spencer Foss; 9th grader, Yael Gurwitz; 11th grader, Natalia Alchalel; 11th grader, Itay Frenkel; and 11th grader, David Feldman.

As with last year’s student program, this year, because the showcase will be on Zoom, students from the Portland Jewish Academy have been invited to participate. Harriet Wingard, who grew up in San Diego and teaches Middle School Humanities at the Portland Jewish Academy, has recruited eight student poets. Once weekly, she conducts an after-school creative writing session at the
Academy.

During the first hour, the new featured poets will be reading their works. Near the end, a few returning featured poets will read. The final half hour will be
devoted to open mic, during which both students and adults will be welcomed to share their works.