L'Dor Va'Dor

From Hausner Parent to Hausner Grandparent

 

My wife Sheree and I were both graduates of Jewish Day Schools; she was a student in Winnipeg, Canada and I attended day school in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It was therefore natural for us to seek out Jewish schools when our sons were growing up in Palo Alto.

In the late 1980s, a group of local Jewish families got together to organize a Jewish Day School. The group was not only seeking a Jewish education for their children, but a Jewish community for their families. This effort led to the creation of the Mid-Peninsula Jewish Community Day School.

Toward the end of summer in 1990, we had the interested school families over to our backyard for a picnic so that the kids could meet each other; but the real agenda was for the parents to check each other out, reinforce each other, and to make sure we were all going forward with this experiment.

In the Fall of that year, classes began at the Mid-Peninsula Jewish Community Day School with a kindergarten and combined first and second grades. Our son Zachary was part of those first classes and our younger son Max entered the MPJCDS kindergarten two years later. Max was a pioneer in his own right as a member of the first graduating middle school class in 2001.

The school has been a big part of our family’s life over the years. To this day, some of our sons’ closest friends are their day school classmates. But a wonderful benefit to Sheree and me is that some of the folks we still are closest with are our fellow day school parents. The Day School creates a real community, a real mishpaha.

Our Day School boys are now grown men with families of their own. Two of our grandsons attend Jewish day schools in Los Angeles. Our granddaughter Mika, Max and Rachel’s daughter, is a Hausner kindergarten student and is the first second generation child to attend the school.

We, of course, get endless nachas (joy) from our grandchildren. For Sheree and me, as I imagine is the case for all Hausner grandparents, having grandchildren is the best decision we ever made. Having them attend a Jewish Day School just adds to that joy.