Seemaneem Fruit Salad

We enjoyed the second of the seven cooking sessions with Karen these past two weekday sessions, preparing a "Seemaneem" Fruit salad. "Seemaneem" means "symbols" in Hebrew, and each fruit in this salad is meant to remind us of the fall harvest of first fruits (Sukkot) which we just finished celebrating a little over a week ago.

Karen began each session by introducing the students to the Hebrew terms for all the ingredients.

She then had the children gather closer around her "model" kitchen counter, so she could demonstrate the best way to seed the pomegranate:

After demonstrating how best to core the apple, peel the orange and "de-pit" the dates, the students went to their own tables and proceeded to follow her instructions.

Seeding the pomegranate pieces in a bowl of (very cold!) water

Everyone found their own rhythm for getting the seeds separated as quickly as possible, either with 4 hands...

...or just with two.

There was some teeth gritting involved, as fingers began to get very cold from the ice water.

Once the seeds had been separated, it was time to scoop them out of the water...

...dry them a bit on paper towel, then toss them into the fruit salad bowl.

Meanwhile, other members of the group were busy trying to figure out the easiest way to peel the orange.

It looked so much easier when Karen was demonstrating how to do it.

Once peeled, the orange was cut into small, bite-size pieces to add into the salad bowl.

Coring and dicing the apple proved to be a much easier task.

The final fruit to be included in the salad were the dates. Step 1: Contemplate the best approach for de-pitting them.

Then get the job done and dice them into the smallest pieces possible!

The next step is to add in the lemon and orange juice, mix everything really well, and finally...

...divide the salad into bowls for every member of the group and...

...after saying the blessing over fruit that grows on trees (...borei p'ree ha'etz), enjoy (quite literally) the fruits of your labor!

After enjoying the refreshing afternoon snack, we had 15 minutes for hafsaka (recess) before joining the 3rd and 4th graders for tefillah with Rabbi Greninger in the Beit Knesset.

After tefillah was over, we had about 20 minutes in our own Edot classroom together before it was time to go to our music session with Ben in the Shira track's classroom. During the very little time I had, I reviewed what we had learned to date about the Beta Yisrael of Ethiopia, then described how, in 1984, a civil war in Ethiopia caused a terrible famine which took a great toll among the Beta Yisrael. At this point, the Israeli army, the American C.I.A. and Sudanese State security forces worked together to evacuate as many of the Beta Yisrael as possible. Within a month and a half period, "Operation Moses" was able to take about 6,000 of the Beta Yisrael to Israel without letting other Arab nations know. Unfortunately, once the news leaked, in January, 1985, the Sudanese government was forced to abandon the operation. Seven years later, in 1991, "Operation Solomon" was able to very dramatically evacuate another 14,000 or so Beta Yisrael to Israel and, very recently, about 9,000 "Falash Mura" (Christians who trace their origins back to the Beta Yisrael) were allowed to immigrate to Israel as well.

The story I've been reading to the students, "The Storyteller's Beads" is a dramatic recounting of the difficult journey many of the Beta Yisrael had to take to reach the Sudan and the "iron eagles" waiting there to fly them to the "Promised Land" in 1984.  It's estimated that some 10,000 Jews died along the treacherous route from hunger, thirst, and bandits who took what little they carried with them. Just before we had to go to our Music session, I shared a YouTube video of a 6th grade class of new Jewish immigrants re-enacting the terrible journey the Beta Yisrael had to make to reach the Sudan. The story is told through a song composed in 1991 by an Israeli musician, Shlomo Gronich, and sung by his Sheba Choir, composed of Beta Yisrael children. The song (and video) is called "Ha'Masa L'Eretz Yisrael" ("The Journey to the Land of Israel"). The video begins with children making fun of two Beta Yisrael girls, telling them they're not Jewish and that they should go back to where they came from. Sadly, I had to share with my Edot students how Rabbis in Israel refused to accept that they were Jewish, forcing them to convert to Rabbinic Judaism, and how they were, and still are, discriminated against in Israeli society. Nevertheless, they are contributing much to Israeli culture, including  their  unique holiday celebrating the giving of the law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. In 2008, the Sigd Festival became an official Israeli holiday. I'll be sharing more information about this Sigd Festival very soon!

Finally, we ended our weekday sessions with Ben, our music director, reviewing songs we sang at our first session two weeks ago with him:

Am Yisrael Chai:

Hinei Mah Tov:

and Oseh Shalom:

This coming Sunday, we'll be starting to take a more "hands-on" approach to our studies about the Beta Yisrael culture. Stay tuned!