Spring Fling

Each year goes faster and faster, and this year was no exception! It seems like I was just welcoming the new and returning Edot students into the Edot classroom back in September, making name tags and photographing them, and playing the "Start-of-the-Year Shekel Game." Now, seemingly overnight, it's the last day of JQuest - our Spring Fling.

Three boys came to our final Edot session - Jeremy, Callen and Zach C. I finished reading the final chapter of "The Circlemaker," then we played the "End-of-the-Year Shekel Game."

With only 3 boys, it was obvious we had enough students to make 3 teams. Here's Callen with everything necessary to play the game - shekels (Israeli currency), a sheet of paper to record his bets, Charna, ready with the questions, and a big bowl of goldfish crackers (ok - the last one wasn't absolutely necessary for the game, but certainly made it more enjoyable!)

Zach is thinking of an answer in the 30 seconds allotted to him.

Jeremy kept very careful track of his bets - and was the winner!

It seemed we had only just begun playing when the clock told us it was time to leave our classroom to join the rest of JQuest up in the Sanctuary for our Spring Fling celebration. Cantor Korn put us all in the right spirit by leading us in singing "Heenei Mah Tov," as people gathered in the Sanctuary

After a few more songs, Rabbi Greninger invited all the teachers up to the beema, for teacher appreciation.

Then, it was time to show our appreciation for our T.A.'s! Below, Max and Charlie, our first session Edot TA's, are among those TA's being thanked for all their help. (Isaac, our second session Edot T.A. was at a NFTY retreat, and couldn't join us.)

We were then all treated to a wonderful slide show of all the different things we've done in our classrooms and at other JQuest events like the Purim Carnival, youth group outings and the Kulanu Family retreat. After hearing a seventh grade presentation about the environment-themed organizations they decided to donate their tz'daka to this year, hearing about how the tz'daka money collected by the K-6th graders was going to be used to help the Jewish Family and Community Service help refugee families settle in our area, and then singing more songs and getting some "Camp Kefli ruach," we all went into the Social Hall for an hour of schmoozing over a BBQ lunch with a jump house and gaga game all set up for the kids.

I wish you all a very enjoyable summer together, and look forward to seeing everyone again in September, in the Edot classroom and/or at all-school activities.

SHALOM V'L'HEETRA'OT (au revoir)!

What Israel Means to Me

I used our past two weekday sessions to summarize and synthesize information I've shared with my students over the past year.

First, I asked them to share information they could recall about each of the four edot we studied this year - American Jews, Ashkenazi (Western and Eastern European) Jews, Indian Jews and Moroccan Jews. I put all the responses we could fit on the whiteboard into four columns - one column for each of the edot. Then we looked across the columns to find identical pieces of information and I circled these.

Then I asked the students to look at the circled responses:

They worshiped one God.
They read the Torah and followed its commandments.
They were looking for a safe place to live where they could be free to be Jews.
They spoke the language of where they lived.
They borrowed recipes from people they lived with and made them kosher.
They originally came from Israel.
They prayed in Hebrew.
They taught their children Hebrew and Jewish prayers.
They were trying to find a place to earn money and to do what they wanted to do to earn the money.
They dressed like the people around them.
They wore tallits (prayer shawls) and kippas when they prayed.
They prayed in synagogues.
They sang holiday songs with melodies they heard around them.

Using the responses above, we had a discussion about "the Jewish experience" in the world between the Roman exile some 2,000 years ago, and the establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948. In summary, the discussion revealed that we were a "wandering" nation, always looking for a safe place to be free to be Jewish in the open and to have careers we chose for ourselves. In one case, we found a place that fit what we were looking for (the United States), but in most cases, we might feel free for a while, but then things changed and we had to leave our homes to find another place to live where we could feel safe again.

At this point, we took a brief pause from our discussion, and without any explanation, I began to issue commands in Hebrew (using vocabulary we had learned in previous sessions) as follows:

La'koom, la'lechet la'shoolchan ha'katan v'lakachat neeyar lavan mey'ha'shoolchan ha'katan. (Get up, walk to the small table and take white paper from the small table.)

Achshav, leekpotz la'keeseh, v'lashevet al ha'keeseh. (Now, jump to the chair, and sit on the chair.)

Continuing on with the commands, I asked the students to watch and listen to me, as I put a white piece of paper on the board, and took a blue marker, then drew a line across the top of the paper with the marker. I issued commands to myself, until I had drawn the Israeli flag on my piece of paper. The students then did the same as they followed my commands. Once we had all made the flag, I continued the discussion activity.

I erased everything we had written on the board about the edot, and wrote ISRAEL on the top, then asked the students to share what they thought of when they saw the word.

On Wednesday, the Shira track students joined us for our discussion. You can see the list growing on the board, as I wrote down all their responses. The words "safety" and "freedom" are on the list, as are candy (one of the students remembered a delicious chewy candy he was given in Israel), parties, Torah, Western Wall and Red Sea among others.  

With just a few minutes left to our session, I asked the students to recall our earlier discussion about the four edot we had studied this year and how they were searching for a place to feel safe and free to be Jewish in the open, then asked them to write one sentence in the white space on their flag that shared "What Israel Means to Me." Below are some examples of what they wrote:

On a lighter note, this week the sixth graders visited Ian in the Youth Lounge again, this time to see how a typical weekday session in 7th grade would begin, and then to do a team-building activity. Here's how it typically begins with a very relaxed atmosphere, and a time to play games and schmooze with each other:

After about 10 minutes, Ian called everyone together to sit on the sofas, so that he could review what he shared last week about what they could expect to learn about and do in 7th grade. Then he led us all into the hallway outside the Youth Lounge for a team-building activity. All the students were asked to stand on a very narrow board. Working together, they had to figure out a way to get each of them off one end of the board, one by one, without any of them falling off the board. It took a few minutes, but they figured it out!

Let me take this opportunity to wish all you mothers a very happy Mother's Day this coming Sunday. Remember that we have no JQuest classes on Sunday to allow you that much more time to spend together with your families. ENJOY!

Jew-A-Palooza

Yesterday, during first session, all of our 5th and 6th graders in the three tracks got together to share with each other what they had been learning about over the course of the year (or at least during the last few weeks) in each track.

At the start of the session, the teachers divided their students into 3 groups; each group, composed of students from each of the 3 tracks, would be led by a T.A. to each of three stations during the course of the session. We dedicated 20 minutes to each station, with 5 minutes allowed for transition time from one station to the next.

The timing worked out perfectly! In the Edot station, students were introduced to arts & crafts projects relating to two of the edot (Jewish Diaspora communities) we studied about this year.

One of the projects related to the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe which we studied about at the start of the second semester. Paper cuts were a very popular folk art in Ashkenazi homes (and in North African homes as well), and many of them could be quite elaborate. This project focused on paper cuts they would make for the holiday of Shavuot or "Sh'vues," as it's called in Yiddish (the next major holiday coming up on our Jewish calendar, beginning the evening of May 30th this year).

Since we had only 20 minutes for each group to learn about the background of each of the art projects and then to make their own, we brainstormed a list of Jewish symbols, and the students could choose one or more of them for their paper cut, then glue the finished paper cut onto a piece of colored construction paper as a backing.

Menorahs and Stars of David proved to be very popular.

Here's a Shabbat candle on a candlestick

The second project which many students chose to make was a "Jeta de la Mezuzah" made and used by Moroccan Jews (our last unit of study in Edot). One of the more important ceremonial objects in the Jewish home in Morocco was this mezuzah cover. A woman would bring the cover to her new home when she married; therefore, her name was embroidered or painted on it. It would be decorated with God's name and usually with a floral or geometric design. It was usually made of velvet.

We made the "jeta's" out of felt, and, to save time, I had pre-cut the pieces so that the students could focus on decorating them with the four-letter name of God (yud-hey-vav-hey), and any other decoration they wished to make using fabric pens and/or scraps of felt material. Once they had finished decorating their jeta, the students glued the two pieces of felt together, leaving the top open in which a klaf can be inserted to make it a kosher mezuzah.

A klaf is a piece of parchment or paper with the "Sh'ma" and "V'Ahavta" prayers written on it, inserted into the mezuzah. I believe these can be purchased in our Isaiah gift shop, or in any Jewish gift store.

In line with our studies about the cultures of the Edot, I also included two batches of cookies in the Edot station - ririba dilkoko cookies from Morocco made with coconut, and commonly served on Shavuot, and poppy seed cookies, a favorite among Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe, and often served on Shabbat. Both proved to be very popular with the students. After the event was over, one of our teachers, Siena, tasted one of the Moroccan cookies, and told me it tasted exactly as she remembered the ones her mother in Israel used to make!

The second station in our Jew-A-Palooza event was in the Y'tzira classroom. There, each group was treated to 3 or 4 skits written and performed by Y'tzira students. Each skit shared the story of a Jewish hero they had studied about in Y'tzira over the past few weeks.

The subjects of the skits ranged from Sandy Koufax, the major league baseball player, to Oskar Schindler, who saved many Jews during the Holocaust from certain death by having them work in his factories.

The students all told me that they enjoyed the station, to which this photo taken by my T.A. Max apparently attests. Maimone, Y'tzira's teacher, will be putting some of these skits which he recorded on Y'tzira's blog, so stay tuned.

The third station was in the Shira classroom, where Erin, Shira's teacher, began by gathering everyone in front of her to share basic lyric-writing information.

Then the students could choose to go to one of 4 tables; each table gave them specific information about different parts of Israel (which Shira students are currently learning about). Using this information, and the information Erin shared with them about lyric-writing, they could write a song about Israel in "rap couplets" or ...

... in Haiku form. The completed songs were then brought to Erin, who used an app on her smartphone that created a melody for the lyrics. The final step of the station was for Erin to video-record the students performing their songs. These songs will appear on Shira's blog.

Amazingly, with so much going on, all the students had a chance to share with each other a taste of what they were learning in each track. We finished just in time for everyone to go up to the Sanctuary, where we joined the 3rd and 4th grade students for tefillah, and where our 5th and 6th graders were given the chance to share with the other classes what they learned during our Jew-A-Palooza event.

Remember that we do have week day session classes tomorrow and Wednesday, but no Sunday session, since it's Mother's Day. As Rabbi Greninger said during tefillah, "It's a very important "Jewish" holiday!!!"

The Jews of Morocco and Jeta de la Mezuzah

During the week day sessions of April 25th and 26th, I introduced the Edot students to the history of the Jews of Morocco.

First, we read in "The Israel Connection: One People, Many Faces" (pp 90-92) that the first wave of Jewish immigrants to Morocco arrived in the days of King Solomon. He sent ships carrying merchandise to far-off lands including the shores of Morocco. Many of those Jews who live in the Atlas Mountains (and there are still a few living there today) believe that they are descendants of the Israelite tribes of Zevulun, Naftali and Asher, who were seamen in ancient Israel. They also have legends which include stories about visits from Moses, Joshua and ten wise men, who came to convince the Berbers to become Jews.

The second wave likely came to Morocco after the Romans burned the Second Temple in Jerusalem, in 70 C.E. Many historians believe that many of those Jews who fought against the Romans in Israel fled to Egypt, and over the next half century or so made their way along the North African coast of the Mediterranean further west, eventually reaching Morocco. In fact, all agree that they established independent Jewish states in different parts of North Africa, the strongest of which was in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. There, they encountered a very mysterious people called the Berbers, who led simple lives as shepherds and farmers and who were idol-worshippers. (To this day, Berbers are famous for their hand-woven rugs.) Over the coming centuries, the Berbers and Jews intermarried, and most Berbers converted to Judaism.

The third wave took place over several centuries, following the birth of Islam and the Arab Muslim conquest of most of the Mediterranean world in the 7th-11th centuries C.E.  During this time, 9 out of 10 Jews lived under Muslim rule, and though they had to pay a special tax to their Muslim overlords, most enjoyed relatively peaceful and prosperous times in these years. It was during this time that Jews began to move into Morocco from other North African Jewish communities as traders and merchants, settling for the most part in the cities of Fez and Marrakesh.

Finally, in 1492, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain forced the Jews of Spain to either convert to Catholicism or leave the country, many Jews opted to leave and the obvious place for many of those living in Andalusia (the very southern part of Spain) was Morocco, directly across the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain. They settled mainly in the large cities and spoke their own language, Ladino, unlike the other Moroccan Jews who spoke Arabic. These Sephardeem (Jews of Spain) did not always get along with the veteran residents of the large cities because they had a different social and cultural background.

In order to help the students understand why the Sephardeem separated themselves from the rest of the Moroccan Jewish community (and, for that matter, from other Jewish communities of India as well), I shared a video clip from the Heritage: Civilization and the Jews dvd-rom program (minutes 5:26-9:55), describing the life of the Jews of Spain for some 300 years under Muslim rule.

I completed our overview of the history of Moroccan Jewry by sharing a very short "Heritage" video clip of a modern-day Moroccan celebration of Mimouna - a unique Moroccan Jewish celebration which immediately follows Passover and which is testament to the close relations Jews had with their Moslem neighbors in Morocco. It was Muslims who brought flour and other ingredients to their Jewish neighbors the moment the sun set on the last day of Passover, and who helped prepare leavened-filled foods and then celebrated for one week following the end of Passover with their Jewish neighbors.

During the past two week day sessions, I taught the students how to make a very simple "jeta de la mezuzah" (French for "mezuzah pouch"). Those Sephardi Jews who arrived in Morocco during the final wave of immigration, carried with them a Christian tradition of wearing a cloth pouch on the belt containing the Christian prayers, "Hail Mary" and "The Lord's Prayer." They wore these while still in Spain as they tried at first to pretend they had converted while still secretly practicing Judaism. Hidden in a secret lining of the pouch were the "Sh'ma" and "V'Ahavta" prayers, which are the 22 lines contained on the parchment in the mezuzah hung on Jewish doors. Once they were free to openly practice Judaism in Morocco (even though they were second class citizens there), they removed the Christian prayers from the pouch, and hung the pouch up on their doorposts. To this day, there are homes in Morocco once inhabited by Jews which still have the pouches hanging on the doorposts, even though their current inhabitants are Muslim. And when many Jews moved to Israel when the State was established in 1948, they brought the tradition of the "jeta de la mezuzah" with them.

Most jeta de la mezuzahs are made from velvet or other fine cloth. We made them out of felt.

Using fabric markers, the students wrote the 4-letter name of God (yud-hey-vav-hey) on the front of the jeta, which Moroccan Jews always did. Some students opted to cut out the letters from scrap pieces of felt.

Once they had finished decorating the front cover of the jeta (with geometric or floral shapes which were common in Moslem lands, since Islam takes very seriously the second of the 10 commandments which bans the creation of images of God, and since man was created in God's image, no images of people are allowed in Moslem countries), the students glued the bottom and sides of the two felt pieces I had cut out for them ahead of time. The top was left open if they should want to purchase a "klaf" - a piece of parchment on which is written the "Sh'ma" and "V'Ahavta" prayers and which is inserted into the mezuzah.

The students, much to my pleasant surprise, didn't want to stop decorating the jetas they were making, and I had to drag them out of the classroom when it was time for us to go to a music session, promising them they could finish their jetas on Sunday.

Even then, they just wanted to glue on one more piece.

Here's an almost completed example, with the four-letter name of God on the top. Pictured on the photo on the table is an original Moroccan jeta, made of velvet and embroidered with geometric and floral shapes.

Finally, we gathered in Shira's classroom, where Eric (our weekday Music teacher) was waiting to teach us two songs connected to Yom Ha'Atzmaut (Israel's Independence Day) which we celebrated on Tuesday (Happy 69th birthday Israel!).  The first song was "Ha'Tikva" ("The Hope"), an English version of the Israeli national anthem, composed by Rick Recht (who sang at our Spring Fling a few years ago!):

And the second song he taught us was a Ugandan version of an Israeli song, "Am Yeesra'el Chai" ("The Nation of Israel Lives"):

Remember that this coming Sunday we will only be meeting during the first session (9:00-11:00 a.m.). We'll be joining Shira and Y'tzira students and teachers to rotate through three different stations in our "Jew-A-Palooza" final event of the year, when each track will share with the others something of what we learned during the year. In our Edot class, we'll be sharing a small piece of the culture of the Moroccan Jews by teaching the other students how to make the "jeta de la mezuzah" and also sharing a part of the Ashkenazi culture of the Jews of eastern Europe by teaching them how to make "Shvueslach" and "Reyzelach" (paper cuts used to decorate windows on the holiday of Shavuot and Shabbat, respectively). Y'tzira students will present skits to share what they learned about Jewish American heroes, and in the Shira classroom we'll learn how to compose simple melodies and use what we learn to compose a new melody for one of our prayers.

Visit to the Contemporary Jewish Museum

Yesterday morning, I met a group of fifth grade families from Edot, Shira and Y'tzira in front of the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco.

While our sixth graders and their families were involved in their final B'nai Mitzvah Prep workshop of the year on the Isaiah campus, the fifth grade families and I were treated to a wonderful tour of  the Museum's latest and largest exhibit,"Roz Chast: Cartoon Memoirs."

We began gathering outside the Museum's main entrance at 9:45 a.m., by which time the temperature on the plaza was already reaching into the low-'70's.

Just a couple of minutes before 10 a.m., our two assigned docents, Ruth and Jenni, came out to greet us and to give us each a round CJM sticker to put on our shirts. By this time, as nice as the weather was outside, we were more than ready to go inside into the cool building (a former PG&E substation). Jenni's group stayed outside for a few minutes extra to learn about the architecture of the building, while Ruth's group began the tour inside.

David Liebeskind, the architect, had designed the original building and the new, blue "cube" that was added on, to resemble the Hebrew letters "chet" and "yud" which spell the Hebrew word "Chai" (Live). Jenny brought along a photo showing an aerial view of the Museum. It's only from above that you can easily see the formation of those two letters.

It didn't take long, once we were inside, for Jenni to lead us upstairs to the second floor. As we rounded the corner from the staircase, we were confronted by this oversized Roz Chast cartoon, published in the New Yorker Magazine. Jenni introduced us to Roz Chast and her work, using this cartoon. There are people squeezed together on a couch, sitting in what looks to be a subway car, but with obvious discrepancies. Just in this one cartoon, Roz is sharing objects from the Brooklyn (Flatbush) apartment where she was raised as an only child by parents who were half a generation or more older than most of her friends' parents, even as she is sharing a social comment about the isolation of New Yorkers in spite of how close together they are sitting.

The exhibit is divided by temporary walls into several sections in a large space. As you enter through the doors leading into the large space, the following video is projected onto a wall. Immediately we become a part of the creation process of this very gifted artist. The video was taken in the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts; if you look carefully, you'll see Museum visitors there coming and going as Roz fills in a projection of a sketch of the outlines of the cartoon, prepared in advance.

To the right of the wall on which the video is projected, Jenni gathered us to introduce the first section of the exhibit, Roz Chast cartoons submitted and accepted for publication by the New Yorker Magazine. I have to admit that I've read the magazine for years, and have always enjoyed the cartoons published in it, but never really looked closely to see who the artists were. I will from now on!

Jenni asked us to look at the cartoons (as many as possible since there were at least 30 of them on the wall, probably many more!) to find whatever Jewish themes we could in them. The one above, "The Rebirth of Venus" and the one below are two good examples:

 

It's easy to find what's Jewish in this cartoon. The caption above reads, "Grandma Yetta's Gefilte Fish" and the text in the dialogue bubbles reads, "What's in it? Don't Ask."

A very big part of the exhibit was dedicated to Roz's memoir, "Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?" in which she shares what her life as a single child of elderly parents was like, growing up in Brooklyn and having to deal with so many issues as they aged. On this page, she's sharing how it felt to have parents older than those of her friends - how isolated she felt from an early age.

There was also a section dedicated to her illustrated books, in particular drawings from her children's book, "Too Busy Marco" in which she created stories about a pet bird she once had in her home.

And in her free time, we learned from Jenni that Roz enjoys hooking rugs. She sketches what she wants to illustrate on the backing of the rug, then hooks the individual threads of yarn to form the pattern. The example above was created by her a few years after her father died. It shares something of her parents' religious leanings - they were both born in New York, but their families were victims of the Holocaust, so they always maintained a strong Jewish identity. But as to how they observed this identity - well, it was a mixed bag to say the least. Pictured on the rug are her father's favorite foods spread out on the table - among other foods mentioned are gefilte fish, borscht, lox, honey cake, schav, ham - hmmm, not kosher that last one, but then again he refused to eat pork or bacon. He drew very strange lines on what was permitted and not, according to Roz.

At the very end of our tour, we went back to one of the 3-dimensional objects in the exhibit - the sofa. Look familiar? (Remember the subway car cartoon above?) Roz uses this piece of furniture in many of her cartoons. Her parents had a couch like this one (though this particular couch was acquired by the Museum for the exhibit). Four of our 5th graders agreed to pose for a photo on it...

...and while their proud parents were photographing them, I was photographing the parents. Hmmm - any Jewish themes in this photo?!

Once the tour was over, we all went downstairs to the art room, where Jenni and Ruth introduced the families to the art project. Each family was given a "Roz Chast Storyboarding" form on which they would plan their own cartoon.

Each fifth grader was then asked to choose one card from an orange deck and one from a pink deck.

Written on the pink deck cards were prompts of subjects that Roz Chast dealt with in her cartoons...

...while the orange deck cards held captions from her cartoons. Once each student had chosen the two cards, the families put their heads together to design the cartoon.

Even younger siblings had a chance to put their creative juices to work.

Daniel and David decided to work together on their cartoon.

We had an hour put aside to work on the cartoons, but as it turns out many of the cartoons were finished in time to allow volunteers to share their cartoons with the rest of the group.

Kassie's subject (above and below) was homework.

Below, Daniel and David are sharing their cartoon with us (subject: Relationships; caption "Down the Hatch") :

Here, Aeryn is sharing her cartoon (subject: Consumerism; caption "What Went Wrong?"):

Collin also shared his cartoon (subject: Academic Pressure; caption "Youth Wants to Know?) :

Yasher Koach (Bravo!) to all our fifth grade artists. And Yasher Koach to our two docents, Jenni and Ruth who helped make our visit such a success!

If you haven't had a chance to see this exhibit, I highly recommend it. It will be on view until September 3rd this year, so you have plenty of time to see it. There is free admission on Tuesday evenings; and if you're bringing the whole mishpoche (family, in Yiddish), take a look here for upcoming family events at the Museum.