Weaving Baskets

As always, we've had a very busy week in our Edot class. We started with the shortest game of Jeopardy - excuse me - Jewpardy! in recorded history. A big thanks goes to Erin, our Shira teacher, who used her technology skills to create the game board on her computer.

Terrific categories from the curricula of all 3 fifth and sixth grade tracks!

We divided into two teams, and everyone was quickly involved

Category: Jewish Holidays - can you figure out the question to this answer?

 Check out this video below to hear the game's lo-tech sound effects!

Then it was time for our Edot students to move around to the commands of the Hebrew Through Movement program:

Still on the Shabbat holiday theme: Andrew, la'tet bakbook ya'een shel Shabbat l'Jake. (Andrew, give the Shabbat wine bottle to Jake.)

Jake, leesh'foch ya'een mee'bakbook ya'een shel Shabbat l'toch kos shel Shabbat. (Jake, pour wine from Shabbat wine bottle into Shabbat cup.)

Ari, leesh'tot ya'een shel Shabbat mee'kos shel Shabbat. (Ari, drink Shabbat wine from Shabbat cup.)

Following our hafsaka (recess) and tefillah (prayer service), I introduced the students to the Sigd Festival, a holiday unique to the Beta Yisrael community until it was made into an official Israeli national holiday in 2008. It's basically a combination of Yom Kippur and Shavuot, during which, in the morning, the Beta Yisrael members fast and pray for forgiveness for their sins, and then, in the afternoon, they climb a mountain (or go up to Jerusalem in Israel) and break the fast with Ethiopian breads and stews and beer, at which point the religious leaders, the Kessim, chant the first 8 lines from the Book of Nehemiah describing how the Scribe Ezra read from the Torah to the Judahites. After that, the afternoon is filled with dancing and singing, more eating, more dancing and singing, and more eating (sound familiar?!). 

I then shared with the class that on November 22nd (the Sunday just before we start our Thanksgiving holiday break), we will be re-enacting a Sigd Festival on our Isaiah campus. We'll skip the fasting part and asking for forgiveness for our sins (since we've already observed Yom Kippur), and will begin by "climbing a mountain" (from Risa Road all the way up to the Oneg Room). Once we reach the "summit," we'll celebrate as they still do in Israel (this year the Sigd falls on November 11th). I'll be asking parent volunteers to help prepare the breads we'll be eating, and the students themselves will prepare a popular Sigd treat called Dabo Kolo in class, the week before the event. We'll also dance and sing.

I already introduced the drum circles a week ago, which all members of the Beta Yisrael dance to. This week, I introduced the students to the Ethiopian shoulder dance, which the Beta Yisrael adopted, and gave a Jewish "twist." Instead of simply dancing just with their shoulders, they added whole-body movements to tell the story of how Queen Yehudit attacked the Christian stronghold of Axum (or Aksum) in the 10th century C.E.. She is a heroine to the Beta Yisrael, who believe she saved them from certain annihilation at the hands of the Christian kings who ruled at the time (shades of Queen Esther and the Purim story perhaps?). I shared a few minutes of a YouTube video of the shoulder dance (giving the students the chance to stand up and "try out the dance," which many did!). Then I shared a YouTube video taken in 2009 of a Sigd Festival celebration in Israel, to give the students an idea of how the Sigd is celebrated.

We ended our weekday sessions with our "Music with Maya" session, as I call it, when we join the other two 5th and 6th grade tracks every other week, to learn new songs or new melodies to prayer chants.
Below, are two videos showing the process of how Maya teaches us - first "B'tzelem Eloheem" ("In the Image of Eloheem") and second, "Elohai neshama she'natata bee" ("My God, the soul you gave me").

On Sunday, we focused entirely on the Beta Yisrael. After reading a chapter from "The Storyteller's Beads" while the students ate a snack, I reminded them of how the Beta Yisrael community was forced to give up its lands to the Christians after warring against them during the 15th and 16th centuries. Since they weren't allowed to farm land anymore, they turned to crafts such as iron smithing, pottery, weaving and dyeing of textiles, clothesmaking, and basket weaving to earn their living.

I then introduced our project for the day - weaving reed baskets - and step by step, we learned how even the simplest weaving steps require intense focus and patience, not to mention a lot of practice, to become  experienced weavers like the Beta Yisrael. The results are below, and as you'll note in the photos, EVERYONE was totally focused.

Hmm - I wonder if there's a merit badge for basket weaving!

Helping each other figure out the steps - here, anchoring the "spokes" to the wooden base

 Once the spokes were anchored to the base, the weaving could begin.

You had to be sure to keep the reeds moist or they would break - very frustrating at times!

It surprised everyone how easy it is to weave 2 "out's" or 2 "in's" and break the pattern. Did I share yet that this requires a lot of focus?!

Weave and moisten, weave and moisten

The hour of weaving went by as if it were only a few minutes. Even the students were surprised when I announced the end of the session. Here are some examples of how far they got in the weaving process. After school, I packed each student's basket in a plastic bag, together with an instruction page and whatever materials they needed to finish the project at home.  Yasher Koach to our Edot weavers!

Beta Yisrael's Language and Values

We focused our attention during the past weekday sessions on becoming familiar with the sounds and "feel" of Amharic in our ears and on our tongues. Amharic is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. It is the second-most spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic. This is the everyday language of the Beta Yisrael community. We also explored the Ge'ez language, used by the Beta Yisrael exclusively for ritual purposes (their Torah - the Orit - is written in Ge'ez). I gave the students a worksheet with the Amharic words and phrases for simple greetings (Hello, Good Morning, How Are You?, I am fine, What is your name?, etc.), and after going over them, I asked the students at each table to carry on a simple conversation in Amharic, in pairs. We had a lot of fun with this activity!

We are also beginning to build an Amharic vocabulary from words used in "The Storyteller's Beads," the novel I'm currently reading to the class.

Notice the partial view of the map on the right - the red outline on top is Israel, the red line on the bottom left is highlighting the name Gondar (the province where the Beta Yisrael lived in northwest Ethiopia), and the red arrow crossing over the Red Sea shows the route many historians believe the Beta Yisrael ancestors took from Yemen on the Saudi Arabian Peninsula to Ethiopia.

Yesterday, we used a good part of the session to discuss the idea of values. I defined a value for the students as "a person's judgment about what is important in life," then asked the students to share their values as I wrote them down. We developed a pretty long list. Then I introduced the word "meedot" to them - the Hebrew word for Jewish values, literally meaning "measures," and I asked them to look at the list we had just generated and consider which values would be important to a Jewish community. Together, we checked off "education," "family," "health," "caring," and "earning a good living."

At this point, I shared a 25-minute film with the class, called "Gesho," filmed by the National Film Board of Canada in 1996, which focuses on a 13-year old Beta Yisrael boy, who had immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia during the 1991 Operation Solomon. As they viewed the film, I asked the students to jot down those values reflected in the interviews and conversations in the movie. At the end of the film, we reviewed our own list, and realized that except for one value, we had listed all of Gesho's and his family's values - the one we missed was Torah and its study.

And, of course, what's a week without Hebrew Through Movement exercises! This week, I continued to introduce new Shabbat-related vocabulary as we reviewed and reinforced our foundational vocabulary. The more words I introduce, the more fun we can have getting familiar with them!

Sammy, la'seem challah al ha'rosh shel Maya, v'la'seem pamot shel Shabbat eem ner shel Shabbat al ha'rosh shel Tobias. (Sammy, put challah on Maya's head, and put the Shabbat candlestick with the Shabbat candle on Tobias' head.)

Ben, la'seem pamot shel Shabbat eem ner shel Shabbat al ha'rosh shel Sammy; v'achshav, Ben, Sammy, Maya v'Tobias, na la'lechet mee'saveev la'keeta l'at, l'at. (Ben, put the Shabbat candlestick with the Shabbat candle on Sammy's head; and now, Ben, Sammy, Maya and Tobias, please walk very slowly around the classroom.)

I've also been slowly introducing some important safety vocabulary for when we go downstairs to recess. We have to cross over the driveway (road) to get to the stairs to go up to the lawn outside the Sanctuary where we hold recess (hafsaka) every weekday session. 

Y'ladeem, la'atzor al yad ha'kveesh. (Children, stop next to the road.)

And once I can join them at the bottom of the stairs, I stand in the road to stop any cars, and when it's safe I say, "Achshav, y'ladeem la'avor et ha'kveesh." (Now, children cross the road.)

  Interestingly, part of the "Gesho" film described how Gesho had to learn Hebrew through immersion techniques as soon as he arrived in Israel. They showed how he learned new vocabulary and a few students commented on how similar the technique was to our Hebrew Through Movement activities. Then they asked me how soon it would be until they could speak Hebrew fluently like Gesho. Ah, if only we could have five days a week, two hours a day of Hebrew like Gesho had, not to mention having the opportunity to live in Israel and hear the language every day, I could have an answer for them!

Introducing the Beta Yisrael

During the past two weekday sessions and again yesterday, I introduced the Edot students to the first edah whose history and culture we'll be exploring this year - the Ethiopian edah or, as they call themselves, the Beta Yisrael (House of Israel). This edah was so isolated from other Jewish communities for so many centuries, that its members believed they were the last Jews left on Earth. What a shock it was for them to learn that there were other Jewish communities in the world, and they were white!

There are various theories as to how a Jewish community first established itself in the northern Ethiopian Gondar Province, bordering the Semien mountains (they may have originally been Yemenite Jews trading across the Red Sea with Ethiopians; they may have been refugees from the Babylonian Conquest of the Kingdom of Judah in 586 B.C.E., who made their way by boat along the coast of the Red Sea from Egypt to Ethiopia; or perhaps they were members of the exiled Judean community in Babylon, who became traders and made their way from Mesopotamia by land and sea to Ethiopia). The Beta Yisrael have their own origin myth, which goes back to the days of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba some 3,000 years ago.

During the weekday sessions, I reviewed the discussion we had at the start of the school year about what it means to be Jewish. I asked the students to share once again how you can tell if someone is Jewish, and I wrote everything they shared on the whiteboard. The list included going to synagogue, speaking Hebrew, wearing a Star of David, having a mezuzah on the door, wearing a keepa (yarmulke), a prayer shawl (tallit), t'fillin (phylacteries), never mixing milk with meat, observing all the Jewish holidays, etc. After 5 minutes, I crossed out almost everything on the list, and asked the students, "If a group of people didn't go to synagogue, didn't pray in Hebrew, didn't recognize the word "Torah" and didn't know what a tallit or keepa or t'fillin or mezuzah were, mixed milk with meat, and didn't know about the holiday of Hanuka, are they Jewish?" Most of the students immediately and emphatically said, "NO!"

This was my introduction to the Beta Yisrael, who separated from the larger Jewish community before Rabbinic Judaism fully developed. They did have a holy text similar to the Torah - the "Orit." The Orit is written in Ge'ez, an ancient Semitic language used by the Beta Yisrael only for ritual purposes. The Orit includes books which the Rabbis did not include in the Hebrew Bible - the Book of Enoch, for example. And they follow Jewish law exactly as it was written down in the Books of the Torah before the commandments were interpreted by Rabbis. It's no wonder that when they began arriving in Israel in large numbers, especially during the 1984 Operation Moses and 1991 Operation Solomon, Rabbinic authorities in Israel refused to acknowledge them as Jews, and insisted they undergo conversion.

Yesterday, I shared a segment of a video called "Falasha! The Saga of Ethiopian Jewry" with the students (the first 7:48 minutes), to briefly share their history and some of their culture with the students. The video was actually a bit of a review already, since at the start of Sunday's sessions, I introduced the students to the historical novel I'll be reading to them during our first semester - "The Storyteller's Beads" by Jane Kurtz. The novel shares the history and culture of the Beta Yisrael through the eyes of two girls in the year 1984 - the year of Operation Moses.

As I read, I let the students doodle on scrap paper. On Sunday's they eat their snack as I read.

 Once the students were made aware of the difficulties the Beta Yisrael encountered during their history in that country, I shared with them the difficult journey many of them were forced to make to reach Israeli planes waiting for them in Sudan in 1984 and again in 1991. These Jews, like Jews in other edot all over the world, had always dreamed of returning to Zion. When the chance came, they risked their lives to reach the planes. Many died along the way. The second video I shared yesterday, "Ha'Masa l'Eretz Yisra'el" ("The Journey to the Land of Israel") is a re-enactment of such a journey presented by a 6th grade class of new immigrants in the Yeshurun School of Cholon (a suburb of Tel Aviv). The video begins with the students showing the difficulties Beta Yisrael members had to face upon their arrival in Israel - looking different, not being recognized as Jews, resentment from other Jews who believed too many resources were being used to help integrate the Beta Yisrael into Israeli culture, and finally, the re-enactment itself based on the song of the same title written by an Israeli composer, Shlomo Gronich, who created an Ethiopian children's choir in Israel back in the 1980's called the Sheba Choir, which sings the song in the video. Click here for the English translation of the song.

Even as we were watching this last video, Maya - our music director - came to our classroom, and as soon as the video was over, she taught us to sing the song. There's a special reason I'd like the students to feel familiar with the song - I'll be revealing that reason in a future post, so stay tuned! Here's Maya teaching us the song's chorus:

  

Aside from our Edot studies, we still leave time for other important activities. Our weekday community-building activity for the Shira, Y'tzira and Edot 5th and 6th graders this past week was another success. This time we played a simple form of "Pictionary," during which volunteers were assigned a Jewish ritual, and using only the marker on the whiteboard - no words, no gestures - they had to draw a picture in only one minute as a clue to allow the rest of the students to figure out which ritual they were assigned.

Can you guess the ritual? Almost all the students guessed it with only this picture on the board! (Unscrolling the Torah during Simchat Torah celebrations!)

Even with only a minute, some students created elaborate drawings - any guesses which ritual this is? (Lighting Shabbat candles!)

And while we're playing, everyone is enjoying a snack - fuel for the session to follow!

Immediately following the games, we returned to our Edot classroom and had more fun with our Hebrew Through Movement activities. Now that the month of Tishrei holidays are over, I began to introduce Shabbat vocabulary to the students.

We reviewed vocabulary we've been using since the start of school, but this time, I introduced a flashcard with the Hebrew word "La'koom" ("Stand up") on it. Even before the 6th graders begin to work with volunteers on learning to decode Hebrew, we're slowly introducing the Hebrew letters - one letter each week - and words beginning with those letters, as well as whole words which the students already recognize from the commands.

Morah Charna, l'hareem ner shel Shabbat (Teacher Charna, lift up a Shabbat candle)

Joey, la'seem ner shel Shabbat al ha'rosh shel Ari (Joey, put a Shabbat candle on Ari's head)

Brahm, l'hareem ner shel Shabbat ba'pamot shel Shabbat (Brahm, lift up a Shabbat candle in a Shabbat candlestick)

This year, for the first time, our 5th and 6th graders will be having music lessons with Maya during the weekday sessions, every other week, during which time she will teach us new melodies for prayer chants (this week we learned a new way to sing the Barechu prayer), as well as holiday songs and songs of Israel. Maya, as noted above, will also be coming into our Edot classroom to teach us songs of the Edot we are learning about. Here she is teaching Shira, Y'tzira and Edot students the new Barechu melody:

Simchat Torah

Yesterday afternoon, JQuest students had a one-hour session in the classroom before joining our congregation-wide celebration of Simchat Torah. Our Edot classroom was filled with students from both sessions.

First, I read to the class from a book called "A Torah is Written," which describes how an experienced scribe copies a Torah scroll for use in a congregation. Aside from having to be an expert in Hebrew calligraphy, the scribe must learn a lot of laws relating to the copying of a 'sefer Torah' - a Torah scroll. The scribe must prepare all the materials - the parchment (skin of a kosher animal), the ink (only 2 teaspoons at a time, to be sure the ink is fresh), and the quill (usually from a turkey or goose). And once the ink on the last word has dried, the scribe must find a partner and the two of them must read each letter and word of all 5 books of the Torah three times over to be sure no mistakes were made in the copying. Only then can the scribe sew together the parchment sheets with the sinews of a kosher animal, and then sew them onto an "Etz Chayeem" - a "Tree of Life" (the two wooden staves on which the parchment is scrolled) to create a "kosher" sefer Torah for a Jewish community.

I always let my students doodle while I read - it's amazing how focused they become on the story when they have something to do with their hands. Their doodles are often quite impressive works of art!

Once I had finished reading the book, we used the remaining time to complete our nametag card activity begun on the first day of school (see my September 21st post for details). Students were asked to design three or more symbolic drawings to describe their interests and/or personality. These cards will be hung on our classroom wall over the windows, along with photos of each student.

Those students who completed their nametag cards quickly were given a chance to begin collecting stickers in my "Stumper/Challenge Program," an optional activity allowing them to eventually earn a Toys 'R Us gift card worth $10.00.  It's my way of sharing the Jewish world with them, that I don't have time to share in the little time we have together each week. There are sentence strips hanging on the bulletin boards in my classroom, each with a question or a challenge relating to a subject of study in Edot - Jewish history, the Jewish World, the Hebrew Bible, Land of Israel, Siddur (Prayerbook), and Holidays. If they answer a stumper they get one sticker; a challenge gets them 5 stickers. They can also write a book report on a Jewish-themed book for 10 stickers! Once they have 20 stickers, they have earned the certificate, and can begin earning another one if they wish.

Ben's looking for an answer to a "Land of Israel" stumper and...

...Sammy is learning about the "Falash Mura" of Ethiopia (the Edah we'll be studying starting next week).

Then it was time to head up the stairs to the Social Hall, to join other school families for a pizza dinner. It's an understatement to say that it was crowded!

It's hard to believe as you look at all those pizza boxes, but we actually had to order more!

After dinner, we all moved into the Sanctuary, where TA's handed out flags to everyone. It's traditional to march up and down the aisles of the synagogue on Simchat Torah waving flags honoring the Torah (we call the parades "hakafot" in Hebrew).

Two Torah scrolls were unrolled. What could have been a very chaotic activity, proved to be very quick and efficient - everyone lined up around the perimeter of the Sanctuary, children in front of parents, and carefully helped to hold up the scrolls - which overlapped each other near the rear of the room.

Rabbi Shanks pointed out two very special parts of the Torah - here, she's pointing to the "Crossing of the Reed Sea" section which has a very interesting design...

...and here is the section with the Ten Commandments.

It is on Simchat Torah that we read from the very last lines of the fifth and final book of the Torah - Deuteronomy (above)...

...and then begin reading the first few lines of the first book of the Torah - Genesis (above).

Cantor Korn chanted the last lines of the Torah for us (with Rabbi Miller reading the English translation immediately after)...

...and then walked over to the other side of the room to chant the first lines of the Torah for us.

The two Torah scrolls were then rolled up and given to JQuest teachers who had volunteered to carry them as we all moved to the Oneg Room, and danced the hora for 15 minutes or so, to tunes played by our own Kleztones. And to finish off the evening, we danced to music played by DJ's Dennon and Doyle. 

And on my way back down to the classroom, I saw a shooting star - a large meteorite which lasted 10 seconds or more in the night sky. We started Sukkot last Sunday evening under a blood moon, and began Simchat Torah under a shooting star - omens for a wonderful 5776 for us all!

Mo'adim L'Simcha

Sukkot began last Sunday evening, September 27th, and what a spectacular start it had this year - it made its entrance under a blood moon! We are commanded to be joyous during this 7-day holiday, to sit in the sukkah, shake the lulav and etrog and welcome guests. It also marks the beginning of the rainy season in Israel (and in California as well). Prayers for rain are an important part of the Sukkot prayer service.

During the weekday sessions this past week, our Edot students celebrated Sukkot together with Shira and Y'tzira track students. On Tuesday, Shira and Edot students had the chance to visit Temple Isaiah's community sukkah up in the parking lot outside the main Sanctuary entrance. Erin, the Shira teacher, and I shared the history and symbolism of the holiday. Thanks to wonderful lyrics written by Erin to the tune of "The Hokey Pokey," we all learned how to shake the lulav and etrog after reciting the blessing. 

The weather was perfect, and we even got to watch a group of turkeys strutting by outside the sukkah!

Well, our wishes for rain on Tuesday worked! Wednesday's students met in the Beit Knesset on the second floor of the school building to learn about Sukkot, because the Sukkah was far too wet from the morning rain to visit. This time, the Y'tzira track joined us, and we had fun again with the "Hokey Pokey" lulav ritual.

We actually began each weekday session (as we plan to do every weekday session this year) with a fun, 10-minute activity for all three 5th/6th grade tracks in the Beit Knesset. Each week, one of the 5th/6th grade teachers will prepare a community-building activity, giving all the students a chance to get to know and interact with each other. This first week was a great success.

Erin prepared a charades game, and called up 3 students at a time to act out Jewish holidays or ritual objects.  

Hmm - must have something to do with eating - that could be any Jewish holiday

On Wednesday, Erin's two TA's, Daniella and Nicole led the game

Still photos tell a story, but this little video clip tells an even better one of how much fun we had!

We had our first weekday tefillah session with Rabbi Greninger and started out with a joyous song of how good and pleasant it is for us to be together as a community: Hinei Ma'tov U'ma'na'eem, Shevet Acheem Gam Yachad!

And to finish off our day after our visit to the Sukkah on Tuesday and the Beit Knesset on Wednesday, we had fun learning Hebrew commands during our Hebrew Through Movement session - reviewing commands we had already learned and learning new ones relating to the holidays of Rosh Ha'Shana and Sukkot.

Baneem la'shevet al ha'reetzpa (Boys sit on the floor)

Ben, la'seem shofar al ha'rosh shel Shaina (Ben, put the shofar on Shaina's head)

Jake, l'hareem lulav v'etrog l'mala (Jake, raise up lulav and etrog)

This coming Sunday evening marks the end of the Sukkot holiday and the start of the final month of Tishrei holiday - Simchat Torah - the happiness of the Torah. JQuest will be celebrating the start of the holiday at Temple Isaiah in a big way. I'm looking forward to seeing all my Edot students in our classroom (Room 201) on Sunday afternoon at 4:30 (be sure not to come to school in the morning!); we'll learn about how scribes copy the Torah scroll and will prepare ourselves for joining parents and other classes up in the Social Hall at 5:30 for a free dinner. This will be followed by a joyous celebration of our Torah, when we unroll two Torah scrolls in our Sanctuary, with lots of dancing to follow.  Please join us!