Looking up and down from their screens, concerned parents and grandparents scribbled notes as they listened to a Zoom presentation by Marjorie Swig, founder of Greenlight Clinic, a mental health facility for teens and young adults.
The February event, hosted by Congregation Emanu-El, was billed as “Supporting Your School Age Child and Adolescent Through the Pandemic,” and at about the halfway point, when Swig finally turned to the topic of teens, the tone became more urgent as she described their experience with words such as “loss,” “grieving,” “anger” and “depression.”
“They’ve missed milestones. They will never get any of that back,” she said bluntly. “We need to give special support to these kids.”
Advice for an Insomniac
Nathan Hasegawa makes an audacious debut.
A lioness yawned in the grass at the Mara North Conservancy in Kenya in 2020.Credit.Siegfried Modola, via Getty Images
Published April 13, 2021Updated April 14, 2021, 9:44 a.m. ET
WEDNESDAY PUZZLE The Yiddish word “chutzpah” can mean different things to people, depending on the context. Sometimes it means arrogance to the point of rudeness, but it can also be used positively, to describe a good amount of confidence and audacity.
To the adults in my family who spoke Yiddish, people with chutzpah were to be admired (“Can you believe my daughter asked for a promotion and she got it? Now
Part Four of OUR PANDEMIC YEAR, a week-long series examining how the Covid pandemic has changed our local Jewish world.
“I think we’re all wondering what’s going to happen.” That was Contra Costa Jewish Day School parent Liat Egel speaking to J. a year ago. It was March 2020 and her two kids, like all children in the Bay Area, were suddenly faced with shuttered schools and an abrupt switch to online learning.
It was a time of uncertainty as teachers and parents tried to cope with a world nobody had planned for. But contacted by J. one year later, Egel was much cheerier, happy that both of her kids were back in the classroom: CCJDS in Lafayette was one of the many Jewish schools granted a waiver for reopening last fall.
Zoe Skigen
Zoe Skigen is a junior at the Jewish Community High School of the Bay, where they serve as class president and co-leader of the Young Activists Club. They belong to Habonim Dror and Tzedek and volunteer at the Campus for Jewish Living.
Lilliana Dodson
Lilliana Dodson is a junior at the Jewish Community High School of the Bay, where she co-leads the Young Activists Club. She is a member of Jewish Youth for Community Action and a community service leader through Jewish Family and Children’s Services.