Purim Ball 2025 Celebrates Double Chai Year
March 18, 2025 by
March 18, 2025 by
On February 23, 2025, current and alumni parents, alumni, staff, and other members of our community came together to celebrate MILTON’s 36th year–or its “double chai” year–at Purim Ball. The theme of the event was “Reflections,” inviting guests to use this milestone, double-chai year to both reflect on all that our community has done in our 36 year history, and to look forward and envision together all that we hope to do in the future. As guests entered the gym, they took in the many reflective surfaces decorating the room: two large mirror archways, hanging mirror streamers, and mirrorballs. At the center of the room was a show stopping, conversation starter: a large “disco chai,” pictured here.
Tables with reflective paper sat underneath the mirror arches. On the paper, guests answered prompts that encouraged them to reflect on MILTON’s past and future, and then clipped them to the arches, adding to the reflective surfaces around the room. The questions were:
After guests arrived and spent time enjoying food and drinks, the first program began. It featured the 2025 Academic Spotlight, the Grade 5 Unsung Heroes project. This project, the final large assignment students complete in Elementary School, combines skills and themes from General Studies, Hebrew, and Judaic Studies. Students design a monument for their chosen “unsung hero” from American history, and write divrei Torah and Hebrew biographies about these figures. Read more about the Academic Spotlight here, and watch a video about the project here.
Later in the evening, the 2025 Purim Ball honorees were recognized for their contributions to MILTON.
Monica and Gavin Abrams are local supporters of the DC pilot of the Ronald S. Lauder Impact Initiative, which aims to grow Jewish day school enrollment. They are parents to six children (the youngest two are MILTON graduates). Monica has served on the MILTON Board of Trustees since 2019 and currently serves as Vice President. Prior to that, Monica co-founded the MILTON Ambassador program, a program where parent volunteers assist the Admissions Department with recruitment efforts, and served on the Strategic Planning Committee and the Development Committee.
Parent volunteer Rachel Federowicz introduced Monica and Gavin. “Monica and Gavin, this MILTON community is ever stronger because of you,” she said. “You are strategic, thoughtful, generous, and visionary community leaders.”
Onstage, Monica spoke of the importance of Jewish day schools for young children’s development of strong Jewish identities. “Falling in love with MILTON was inevitable,” she said. “One of MILTON’s greatest strengths is that the school champions each child. From the very beginning, the school focused on how our children could excel, prodding them to stretch themselves beyond their comfort zones and gently guiding them through their ‘areas for improvement.’ This is MILTON at its heart–always striving for excellence and looking for areas of improvement. MILTON never rests on its laurels or thinks the work is already done. Even with this philosophy of constant striving, MILTON creates a warm, loving, joyful environment rooted in Jewish values.”
Monica also spoke about creating the Parent Ambassador program and contributing to the Lauder Initiative in order to bring her positive experience to more families, telling the crowd, “When you love something so much, you want other people to share in that love.”
David and Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen have been part of the MILTON community since 2012, and will soon be the parents of three MILTON graduates. David served as a MILTON trustee for six years, including as Board Treasurer and Vice President. Lucy served as a Parent Ambassador, volunteered as an 8th grade Arabic teacher, and chaired the Yitzhak Rabin Lecture series, a speaker series that furthers public discussion around themes of leadership, difference, and conflict resolution, in honor of the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Board Secretary and President-Elect Beth Tritter introduced Lucy and David, and connected their attributes and contributions to the Torah portion of the week, Trumah, which includes God’s commandment to build the Mishkan.
“Lucy and David embody the spirit of what Hashem describes in Trumah,” she said. “A community built by people ‘whose hearts are so moved,’ and who come together to create a place that is not only beautiful, but holy. They do the work with intention and with a full heart, without expectation of or desire for acclaim. They have strong convictions but are always open to a lively debate. And they bring richness to our MILTON family.”
David and Lucy discussed the value they placed in sending their children to a school with a strong educational foundation, where students also would gain literacy in Jewish texts and traditions and feel a sense of kindness and community. They thanked their parents for laying the groundwork that drew them toward MILTON by sending them to Jewish day schools themselves.
“We have watched both our children and their many wonderful friends leave MILTON phenomenally well prepared for high school,” said David. “We are so appreciative to the extraordinarily devoted and caring MILTON faculty and staff who have been both teachers and role models for our children. From the first day in 2012 when we walked into Laura Cohen’s kindergarten classroom, we knew this was a magical, wonderful place. Too many teachers and administrators have given so much of themselves to our children for us to be able to name all of them.”
The honorees were presented with gifts of hand-made havdalah candles, customized candle stands, and spices as a nod to their ever-strong but transitioning relationships with MILTON as the Kurtzer-Ellenbogen’s youngest child graduates this year and Monica is finishing her last year of board service.
To end the night, guests enjoyed a DIY s’mores bar—a delicious end to a delightful evening!
