In a ceremony on Sunday, Sept. 20, the students and staff at the Temple Emanuel Cherry Hill Pre-School and Religious School will celebrate their third designation as No Place for Hate, having completed a year of anti-bias and anti-bullying programs. Nancy Baron-Baer, Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League, will attend the ceremony and present the school with its official designation banner. To earn this distinction, the school formed a No Place for Hate committee, adopted a resolution pledging to create a more inclusive community, and implemented a number of projects promoting respect for differences.
Temple Emanuel began the 2014–2015 school year with a project called “Bee” Kind, “Bee a Team”. After reading books to learn about how bees accomplish their work by working as a team, they did activities and had discussions on how they could work as a team to celebrate diversity, promote respect for others, and challenge bullying behavior. For their second project, they participated in a student-parent Mitzvah Day. Before setting off to improve the community around them, the students participated in lessons that taught why they should help others and how important it is to embrace our differences. Their final project, “What’s Jewish About Butterflies?”, helped start a conversation about respecting people with different abilities. Students participated in an art show, a Mental Health Expo, and listened to two local authors who spoke about mental health issues and bullying.
This is the third year that Temple Emanuel’s Pre-School and Religious School will receive its designation banner. The Temple Emanuel Pre-School and Religious School is the first and only synagogue school to receive the No Place for Hate designation in the ADL’s tri-state region, and is part of more than 220 schools and community organizations in the region currently participating in the No Place for Hate program, following Governor Ed Rendell’s endorsement in 2006.
