Mehndi Handprints of the Bene Israel

Now that we have explored some of the history of the Bene Israel (both documented and speculated), it's time to explore some aspects of their culture. We've already learned that they are unique in the roles women played, both at home and in the religious life of the community. Women had the final say in anything happening in the home, and were allowed to read from the Torah (their synagogues even had two bima's - one for the men and one for the women Torah readers!). We learned that all celebrations - holiday or life cycle - always included the entire community and were thus often lavish affairs, the costs being shared by everyone. And we learned that the Prophet Elijah was venerated in a "Malida" ceremony during every Jewish celebration

We began to explore the Bene Israel's wedding ceremony customs and rituals during our past two weekday sessions. In these, they are similar to other eastern Jewish communities around the world, like those of Yemen and Morocco, in that the weddings often involve many parties and ritual ceremonies which occur over a two-week period. There are parties for the bride and parties for the groom. Three days before the actual marriage ceremony (the final day of the two week celebrations), the Bene Israel bride-to-be and groom-to-be invite the community to their future home and perform the "Mehndi" ceremony. "Mehndi" is the Judeo-Marathi word for "protection."

During this ceremony, the right hands of both bride-to-be and groom-to-be were smeared with henna or saffron dye, considered by many cultures to have "anti-demonic" properties, then the hands were pressed against a wall inside the home. Once the prints had dried, the "Evil Eye" was painted in black in the center of the palm, and good luck symbols were painted around the prints. As with all other edot (Jewish Diaspora communities), the Bene Israel borrowed from the surrounding culture, which in this case was Hindi and Buddhist. Peacocks, elephants, and lotus flowers were often painted onto amulets (representing beauty, strength and purity of heart and mind, respectively). In the "Mehndi" ceremony, one or more of these images would be painted onto the wall around the hand prints. Then Jewish symbols of holiness and good luck would be added to the Indian symbols - the Hebrew letters "chet" and "yud" (spelling the Hebrew word for life - Chai), the Hebrew letter "shin" (representing the first letter of one of God's names - Shaddai) and the ancient menorah were the three most commonly used symbols. Beginning in the late 15th century, with the arrival of Sephardi Jews from Spain and Portugal (known in India as the Paradesi Jews or White Jews), the Chamsa (the five-fingered amulet borrowed from the Muslim cultures of Arabia and North Africa) began to appear, and in the early 19th century, the Magen David (Jewish Star) was often painted on the wall as well. The hand prints thus became permanent home amulets, ensuring a happy marriage for the couple and protection for the woman and baby during childbirth.

When the Bene Israel and other Jewish communities in India began to move to Israel in the early 1950's, they sold their homes to non-Jews. To this day, the handprints and the Jewish as well as Indian good luck symbols remain on the walls of many of these homes.

We made our own hand print "amulets" in class on Tuesday and Wednesday. Below are photos taken during the process and some of the final results hanging on the bulletin board in Room 202 - a very "protected" room to which all are welcome!

First, trace the right hand onto the paper (to be sure the final print doesn't cover any good luck symbols drawn around it)

 Then draw one or more Indian and Jewish good luck symbols around it

Colors (especially bright ones) are just as important as the symbols themselves - most cultures believed that certain colors could ward off evil

Add lots and lots of colors!

Some students practiced drawing the symbols on scrap paper

Isabella, my very capable TA, prepares the table with fingerpaints (and lots of paper towels!!!) (Notice the bucket of water under the table for the students to wash their hands in after making the print)

Students could choose between orange and green fingerpaint. Once they smeared their hand in the paint, they made a quick print onto a paper towel to take off the excess paint...

...then made the final print on the 9"x12" drawing paper, using the tracing of their hand as a guide

Once they had pressed down on the fingers and thumb of the hand, they quickly lifted the hand off the paper to prevent smudging

After washing the hand and drying it very carefully, they drew the "Evil Eye" in the center of the palm, and then the drawing was quickly hung up to dry. By the end of Wednesday's session, we had 44 amulets hanging on the wall. As I said - Room 202 is now amply protected from demons!

Before introducing the Mehndi ceremony, I shared a wedding ritual the Bene Israel have in common with other Jewish communities in the world - the signing of the ketuba - the marriage contract - just prior to the wedding. Here is a ketuba written in 1913 from Cochin. Notice the peacocks and the crown of the Torah at the top - again, the mingling of Indian and Jewish symbols

I also shared this copy of a page from a Judeo-Marathi language Haggadah printed in Mumbai (Bombay) in 1846.

The Bene Israel

We continued our unit of study about the Jews of India yesterday. Just before Purim I had presented an overview of the three major Jewish immigration waves to India, with a focus on Jewish immigration to the southwest coast of India, specifically on the city of Cochin where the largest community of Jews lived before moving to Israel in the 1950's and 1960's.

Yesterday, we took a closer look at the first Jews to arrive in India, who call themselves the Bene Israel (Children of Israel). They do not consider themselves descended from the Tribe of Judah, and thus do not refer to themselves as Jews, but as Israelites.

I shared with the students a YouTube segment about the Bene Israel and their veneration of the Prophet Elijah, whom they believe rescued the 7 couples shipwrecked off the coast of India from whom they believe they are descended. This belief is the foundation of the Malida ceremony, performed by the Bene Israel during all major Jewish holidays and life cycle events. I also shared a very brief YouTube segment depicting a Malida ceremony performed in Israel (hence the chants blessing the Prophet Elijah are all in Hebrew instead of the Marathi language spoken by most of the Bene Israel in India).

We'll be re-enacting the unique Bene Israel wedding ceremony, including the Malida ceremony, on Sunday, March 22nd during second session only. Please be sure to let me know if your child(ren) can join us for the event.

We spent the last 20 minutes of each session yesterday reviewing vocabulary in our Hebrew Through Movement (HTM) program, and introducing new Pesach (Passover) vocabulary. The holiday is less than a month away (the first seder will be held on Friday evening, April 3rd!). Since we only have 4 HTM sessions left before the holiday, I've decided to focus on teaching vocabulary related to the "Mah Nishtana" (the Four Questions asked traditionally by the youngest person at the seder ceremony). Yesterday, I taught the Hebrew words for night/nights (layla/leilot), for leaven (chametz), and matza.  I drew a crescent moon on the white board, and then two crescent moons to symbolize night and nights, and used a plastic prop of a baguette-type bread to symbolize chametz and a plastic prop of a matza. Once most of the students recognized the Hebrew words, I asked individuals to come up and either point to the moon or moons and hold up the bread or matza, as we sang the first question of the "Mah Nishtana." Here is a quick video we took of one of the groups.

 

 

During the coming weekday sessions, we'll review the first question and learn the vocabulary for the second question. Incidentally, the "Mah Nishtana" questions are written in Aramaic, a very close cousin to Hebrew, which means that forms of many of the Hebrew words we've already learned, such as "la'shevet" (sit), "le'echol" (eat), and "kol" (all) appear in the questions.

Purim Carnival Fun at Isaiah

Yesterday morning we did our very best -  first in our Edot classroom and then with the rest of the school up in the Sanctuary and Social Hall - to create as wild and wacky an atmosphere as we could to welcome in Purim. The holiday itself begins on Wednesday evening, but our annual LAFTY Purim Carnival definitely primed us for Wednesday evening's ultimate Purim Madness.

First, we played "In the Manner of the Word" in our classroom. It's a game totally dependent upon volunteers willing to act out certain sentences in the "manner of the word." "The Word" in this case, is an adverb. We started the game by  having the students review the major events of the Purim story in sentence form. I wrote ten of the sentences on the board. Then the students called out adverbs and I wrote 14 of them on the board.  A volunteer was asked to leave the classroom, with a "gatekeeper" watching the door and letting in the volunteer once another volunteer had chosen one of the adverbs. Once the first volunteer came back into the classroom, he or she chose another volunteer to act out one of the sentences "in the manner of the word," and had to try to guess what "the word" was. A lot of funny and crazy situations arise when you can't use words or props to act out the assigned sentence!

Gatekeeper Shaina guards the classroom door

Volunteer Ian chooses one of the adverbs

There was no shortage of volunteers for this game!

Queen Vashti refuses to appear only in her crown for the king's feast - weirdly???

Haman advising the King to kill all the Jews - superstupidly???

Queen Esther inviting the King to a feast - madly???

We were all definitely in a wacky mood by the time our class time was over, and we went upstairs to the Sanctuary to join the rest of the school for the Purimshpiel and Parade. 

Our own Sammy was a narrator in the play!

A lot of very odd characters could be seen and heard singing along with Joel, as he led us in a medley of Purim songs.

Can you tell who these suspicious looking characters are?!

Here are some more sights I caught with my camera:

Ari getting ready to show off his putting skills!

Jacob enjoying cotton candy!

Jenna and Mara enjoying cotton candy!

Alex taking a pizza break

And what's a Purim Carnival without hamantashen?! Lots and lots of hamantashen!!!

So many prizes to choose from!!!

Andrew sporting some of his prizes!

Happy faces everywhere!

Yup - definitely a thumbs-up kinda day!

CHAG PURIM SAMEACH!  HAPPY PURIM!

The Jews of Cochin

During our past two weekday sessions, I introduced the Edot students to the third edah we'll be studying this year - the Jews of India. More specifically, we'll be focusing on those 3 major waves of Jewish immigration to the southwest part of India known as the Kerala District where most Jews settled over a 2,500 year period (probably from the time of the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians). Even more specifically, we'll take a close look at the history and culture of the Jews of Cochin, the largest city in the Kerala District.

The first wave of Jews to reach the shores of India refer to themselves as the Bene Israel (Children of Israel). Non-Jewish Indians in the Kerala District began to refer to them as the Shenwar Teli - the oil pressers - since local non-Jewish mythology describes them as having brought the secrets of the olive and its oil to the area. Two successive waves of Jewish immigrants - the Paradesi Jews who were refugees from the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century and the English Jews who served as bureaucrats in the colonial Indian government during the 19th century, all referred to the Bene Israel as the "Black Jews" because of their dark olive-colored skin. As with all Jewish edot, the Jews intermarried with the local population, and began to assume physical characteristics of that population.

I shared the history and culture of the Jews of Cochin with the students, using Part 1 and Part 2  of a film produced in 1998. Most Cochini Jews immigrated to Israel during the 1950's, as described in the second part of the film, and the remaining Jews (or almost all of them) left for Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israel War, since India was then allied with the Soviet Union, which, in turn, was allied with the Arab governments fighting Israel. There was a fear that the Indian Jewish community would suffer from the results of the war, so the Israeli government helped them to make aliya (to immigrate) to Israel over the next few years. Here, in Berkeley, the Judah L. Magnes Museum sent what was then referred to as a "rescue mission" to Cochin, to save as many physical remnants of the Indian Jewish community as possible. In fact, the Indian government did not react negatively toward the Jews, and tried to convince them to remain. They did allow the Magnes Museum team to take back hundreds of ritual objects - even a 19-foot Ark of the Torah. To this day, the Magnes Museum boasts the largest collection of Indian Jewish artifacts in the country.

We also took time during our weekday sessions to work on our Purim vocabulary as part of the Hebrew Through Movement program. Below are some photos my TA's took:

Stephen, leekro megillat Esther (Stephen, read the Scroll of Esther); Danielle, l'har'eesh ra'ashan (Danielle, make noise with the grogger)

Jake, la'seem masecha shel Purim al ha'eyna'eem shel Ella (Jake, put the Purim mask on Ella's eyes)

Jake, l'hareem megillat Esther (Jake, hold up the Scroll of Esther); Jack, leek'ro megillat Esther eem masecha shel Purim al ha'eyna'eem (Jack, read the Scroll of Esther with a Purim mask on your eyes)

Camille, la'rootz mee'saveev la'shoolchan v'l'har'eesh ra'ashan (Camille, run around the table and make noise with a grogger)

Alex, la'shevet al ha'shoolchan v'l'har'eesh ra'ashan (Alex, sit on the table and make noise with a grogger)

Remember that both sessions meet at the same time this coming Sunday, for our special Purim Carnival festivities. First, all the students will meet in our classroom (Room 201), during which time we'll play a fun Purim game. Then, we'll join everyone up in the Sanctuary for the children's Purimshpiel (Purim play) directed by Joanne Peterson and a Purim parade, followed by the Carnival in the Social Hall from 10:30-12:30.  I hope to see you all there! 

CHAG PURIM SAMEACH! (HAPPY HOLIDAY OF PURIM!)

Special Purim Posters

Purim is just a week and a half away, and our Edot students are definitely getting into the mood of the holiday. Last week they prepared hamantashen, and yesterday we reviewed the basics of the Purim story as told in Megillat Esther - the Book of Esther. Then, in line with our Edot curriculum (studying about Jewish Diaspora communities), I  introduced the students to the existence of over 60 other similar close escapes of Jewish communities referred to as "Special Purims."

Most historians do not believe that the events retold in Megillat Esther actually occurred. The literary form of the story is a familiar one - similar to fairy tales in some ways. It's a revenge story whose main characters reflect Babylonian influence: Mordechai's name reflects that of Marduk, the chief Babylonian god, while Esther's name reflects that of Marduk's consort, Astarte. The tale told in the Book of Esther is the only one in the Hebrew Bible which does not take place even partially in the Land of Israel, and in which God's name is not mentioned even once. It is also the only book of the Hebrew Bible for which a copy has never been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Special Purims, on the other hand, have actually occurred (documented by both the Jewish communities involved as well as outside sources) and, in most cases, are still celebrated by the descendants of the communities involved. They took place in Jewish communities in almost every part of the world. For example, the Miracle of the Bomb took place in 1796 in the northern Italian city of Fossano, when a young Napoleon Bonaparte led French forces against the city. The city was losing its battle against the French. The Christians in the city were beginning to suspect that the Jewish community was conspiring with the enemy, since most of the cannonballs flew over the city's wall (against which the Jewish ghetto was built), and into the center of the city where the cathedral and Christians were located. On top of that, it was late March, a time when Christians began to accuse Jews of murdering young Christian children to use their blood for the Passover wine and matza. A frenzied mob gathered to attack the Jews who were hiding in the second-story synagogue in the ghetto. Just as they were about to break through the sanctuary's doors, a bomb burst through the synagogue wall and fell between them and the sanctuary door. The bomb never exploded, but it frightened them so, that they ran away in fear. Soon after, Napoleon and his troops entered the city and dismantled the ghetto, allowing the Jews to live in the city safely and securely under a new French government. To celebrate this "Miracle of the Bomb," Jews of Fossano never repaired the hole in the synagogue wall. Instead, they created a window from it, and wrote "The Miracle of the Bomb" in gilded letters over the top of the window, where it can still be seen today. The events were recorded on a scroll, which is read each year by community members on the second day of Hol Ha'moed (the second of the 4 days between the first two days of Passover and the final two days), the day the "miracle" occurred. 

The students in each session were divided into 5 groups, each of which was assigned to create a poster depicting a "Special Purim" - what happened and how the "miraculous" rescue has been celebrated by the community ever since.

Information about each of the assignments was given inside a folder given to each group

Reading about the events of the assigned Special Purim

Discussing the design of the "Purim of the Poisoned Sword" poster

Checking out materials available to use for the posters

"Curtain Purim" begins to take shape...

...as does the "Day of the Miracle" poster

Follow the arrows to learn about the "Purim of Shiraz" (Persia)

"Purim of the Poisoned Sword" (Germany)

"Purim of Fettmilch" (Germany)

"Purim of Sharif" (Tripoli, North Africa)

"Curtain Purim" (Prague)

"Purim of Saragossa" (Spain)

"Day of the Miracle" (Tiberias, Israel)

"Miracle of the Bomb" (Italy)

"Purim of the Bandits" (Turkey)

All these posters can be seen on the bulletin board in the hallway outside of Room 202

 

Between the two sessions, sixth graders from the Y'tzira track led us in a Creative T'fila service which they had designed the previous Wednesday under the guidance of Rabbi Miller. The theme they decided upon was "Disneyland!" A very special part of the service they led was the "Mi She'beirach" prayer, which they all came up to introduce and lead. This is the prayer we sing to ask for a speedy recovery, "a renewal of body and spirit," for those who are ill. We are always thinking about members of our own community who are not able to join us because of illness - yesterday we dedicated the prayer to Naomi, a Y'tzira student fighting leukemia, who just recently underwent a bone marrow transplant, as well as to Josh, my co-teacher and 7th grade teacher, who has also been diagnosed with leukemia and will be undergoing a bone marrow transplant in the near future. We wish them both a full recovery and want them to know we are thinking of them and miss them very much. Below are two brief videos that I shot during the introduction to the song, and of the song itself (sorry for the poor camera and audio quality!). Our voices may not be professional, but that should not take away from our heartfelt wishes reflected in the song!