This past Sunday, April 29th, all the fifth graders from the Academy, Edot, and Shira tracks came together during the first session to experience a "journey on a magic carpet." The reference in the title is to the Operation Magic Carpet carried out by Israel between 1949-1951, when over 45,000 Yemenite Jews were flown "on the wings of eagles" (Exodus:19:4) back to the Land of Israel. Jews had lived in Yemen for at least 2,500 years, perhaps even longer, and had always dreamed of returning to Israel. Unfortunately, due to Yemen's isolation at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, its very harsh, mountainous terrain, and the extreme poverty that the Jews lived in, most were not able to fulfill this dream until "Magic Carpet".
We began the workshop with a brief introduction to the subject, during which time the students and parents who attended were literally given a "taste" of Yemenite Jewry as they sampled Zemeta (a mixture of ground roasted garbanzo beans, sesame seeds, sugar and cinnamon), plain roasted garbanzo beans, and a candy made of lemon juice, sugar, and cardamom favored by Yemenite Jews. As they sampled the treats, they watched a YouTube segment which introduced, without words,
the Yemenite Jews and their world.
Following this introduction, the students and their parents were divided into three groups, and rotated between three stations. One station introduced them to the art of Yemenite Jewish jewelry-making. The Yemenite Jews were not allowed to own land, so over the centuries they began to excel in handcrafts, like leather-working, basket-weaving, and embroidery. But they became especially famous for their silver and copper jewelry, creating beautifully filigreed pieces of work. Since the Muslims were not allowed to work metals, they depended upon the Jews to create their weapons as well as their jewelry. During the jewelry-making station, the participants learned to use the needle-nose pliers to create copper wire coils, and embellished the coiled wires with multi-colored beads. Considering that we only had 20 minutes for each station, the bracelets that were created were lovely.
The second station allowed the participants to board one of "Operation Magic Carpet's" flights, during which they were treated to a popular Yemenite Jewish story which originated in the Babylonian Talmud, called "The Merit of the Sabbath." When the story was over, Genia (Academy's teacher) led a discussion about the Jewish values reflected in the story, and then gave the students the opportunity to write notes on the wings of the plane, sharing what they would take with them to Israel from Yemen.
The third station was entitled, "Teiman: Music of the Jews of Yemen" and shared how a unique Yemenite Jewish sound was created due to a tragedy that struck the Jewish People in the year 70 C.E. It was then that the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in Judea. When news trickled down to the Yemenite Jewish community about this national disaster, they mourned deeply. They had always dreamed of returning one day to worship God in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, and now the Temple was gone. To this very day, some very religious Yemenite Jews still wear black armbands on their right arms to mourn the destruction. The Yemenite Jewish community swore that until a new Temple would be built, they would never play musical instruments. They kept their promise, and only used tin cans or dumbeks (drums held under the arm when played) to keep the beat as they sang their songs. One of the songs they sang in prayer for the restoration of the Holy Temple is still sung today - "Im Nin'Alu." In order to introduce the workshop participants to the sounds of Yemenite Jewish music, two YouTube segments were played, both sharing the
Im NinAlu song as sung by the famous Yemenite-Israeli singer, Ofra Haza. She sings a modern version of the original prayer, which you can briefly hear being sung by Yemenite Jewish men during their prayers in a segment from the video
"Teiman: Music of the Jews of Yemen".
By the time the participants had visited their third station, it was time to join the rest of the school for t'fillah in the Sanctuary. This was the third, and final all-fifth grade workshop of the school year. We began with the Ethiopian Jewish (Beta Yisrael) Sigd Festival, back on October 23rd, followed by the "Chiddur Siddur" workshop on February 26th. These three workshops succeeded in their goals of providing the fifth graders and their parents with the opportunity to get to know each other, as well as to share a taste of the focus of each track.
