Writing Letters Home

During the past two weekday sessions, each of our Edot students "became" a Jewish pioneer who is either buried in the Sonora Pioneer Jewish Cemetery or who ran a business in nearby Columbia. I assembled "archives" for each pioneer several years ago, with the help of Dr. Ava Kahn who was once the chief archivist at the Magnes Museum's Western Jewish History Center (which archives are now part of UC's Bancroft Library), and who visited my classroom several years ago to speak to the students about how archivists assemble materials and use them for research.

Using a summary sheet of what we know at this point about the life of the pioneer, as well as other documents written by or about the individual, and some photographs if any were taken, the students took time to get to "know" their assigned pioneers. Once this was accomplished, I asked them to write a "letter home" to one or more family members they had to leave behind in Europe. This assignment (which will be completed next week) will allow each student to review what we've learned in class about the reasons young Jewish men (and later women) left their homes to embark on a dangerous journey to California, how they coped during the journey, how they tried to maintain their Jewish identity and faith during the trip and once they settled in California, and what their lives in Sonora or Columbia were like - how they earned their living and participated in the Jewish communal life they established in the mining towns.

This letter, I explained to the students, can be classified as "historical fiction." We have a lot of information about a handful of the pioneers, but for many others we know precious little - in some cases, only what was inscribed on their gravestones (or at least, what is still legible on the stones). In order to write the letters, the students are being asked to "fill in" missing information using facts we learned along with their imaginations. These letters will be read by students going on the Gold Rush field trip on November 6th, as they stand next to the grave of the pioneer in the cemetery, or in front of the store run by the pioneer on Columbia's historic Main Street.

Michael is "becoming" Hartwig Caro, the very first Jew to be buried in Gold Rush country - he was only 17 years old when he died.

Joey is "becoming" Phillip Schwartz," who ran the "New York Fancy Dry Goods" store on Columbia's Main Street.

And Max is "becoming" Aron Jacob, a Jamestown merchant, who succumbed at the age of 34 to a cholera epidemic that swept through the town in 1862 (his wife, Mary died 4 months later at age 33 from the same cause). The children they left behind (we're not sure how many) were sent to San Francisco to be cared for by relatives - a pattern not uncommon in the Gold Country.

These letters will become part of a "documentary" bulletin board I'll be putting up in the hallway outside our classroom after our field trip, sharing what we learned about the Jews of the Gold Rush with other students and teachers, as well as visitors.

We only had a short amount of time to begin writing the letters on Tuesday and Wednesday, since the first part of each session was dedicated to the second of our 8 scheduled cooking classes with Karen (on Tuesday) and Stephanie (on Wednesday). This time, they led us in preparing a light and delicious "Seemaneem" fruit salad. Hopefully, you've received an e-mail from the school office with the recipe attached by the time you read this post. "Seemaneem" means "symbols" in Hebrew, and the fruits we sliced and diced for the salad are all grown in Israel. It's a popular recipe for the Sukkot holiday, which commemorates the harvest of the first fruits in the Land of Israel in ancient days.

We began the session each day by gathering around the demonstration table so that Karen (pictured above) and Stephanie could show everyone the safe and most effective ways to slice and dice the fruit.

Here's Stephanie sharing the recipe with us on Wednesday.

Then the students divided up to work at separate tables - no more than 4 to a table. They divided the work between themselves so no one stood idly by. Here's Gabe separating the seeds of the pomegranate.

The trick is to separate them in a bowl of water, so that the heavier seeds sink to the bottom while the lighter inside skin floats to the top and can be easily picked out of the water.

Then, it's a simple step to scoop up the seeds (as Jeremy is doing here) and let them drain in the hands...

...then put them on a paper towel to dry off and transfer them into the fruit salad bowl, as Jack is doing here.

Here, Joey is working on separating the date pit from the meat of the fruit.

Here's Callen slicing the dates.

Michael is working on slicing the apple. The first cut is the hardest, as many students quickly discovered.

Each student found his/her own method for slicing and dicing. Here's Joey demonstrating his apple slicing technique.

You have to put some muscle into that first cut, as Abby is demonstrating here.

Peeling oranges wasn't as easy as some thought it would be. Michael is working on his orange peel here, piece by piece.

Abby decided to peel her orange section by section.

The sliced orange is now ready for Abby to put into the fruit bowl.

Once the fruits were all sliced and diced and transfered to the fruit bowl, it was time to squeeze lemon into a plastic 2 oz. tasting cup.

Then one tablespoon of the juice was measured out, to be poured over the fruit.

Then it was time for one student from each table to go to Karen for the final ingredient - 1/2 cup of orange juice, which was poured over the salad as well.

Stir it all together, and voila - seemaneem fruit salad ready to eat!

Divide it up into bowls for each member of the group...

...bring it over to tables in the back of the Oneg Room that had copies of the b'racha (the blessing) we say over fruits that grow on trees...

...recite the blessing together, and eat and enjoy!

As a final note, a few students noticed pomegranate juice stains on their shirts. If it's not too late, I found this website with steps to follow to remove the stains. It's not guaranteed, but it's worth a try.

B'TEYAVON!  BON APPETIT!