Archaeology Activity

I took the time yesterday morning, to review what we had learned to date about the Jewish linear concept of time, and the Rabbinic understanding of history as a progression of events which were direct consequences of Israel's ethical choices based upon the Covenant of Sinai. Per that Covenant between God and Israel, God promises to bless us and make us a holy nation of priests if we follow God's commandments; if we don't, God promises to punish us and, in the Rabbinic interpretation of history, this means that God will send our enemies to conquer us.

With this in mind, I asked the students to define the word "history" for me. After a brief discussion, where all agreed that history had to do with past events, I asked, "How do we know what these past events were?" At this point, we honed in on the exact definition of history - "The written record of past events." After further discussion about who wrote these records and where we could read them, I asked if we could always believe that what was written was true, especially records we have from ancient days. We then discussed how many recorders of historical events were writing for a particular audience they wanted to please, or how one event could easily be interpreted in different ways by different participants or observers. If this is the case, I asked, how can we go about verifying if what was written actually occurred as described in the account? Several students quickly came up with the solution - we can compare several written records relating to the same event. So, for example, when we read in the Bible that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia destroyed King Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, do we have any Babylonian records sharing their side of the story, and, if so, does their story match ours? 

This led us to the subject at hand - Archaeology. Since the early 1700's, this science has been developing at a faster and faster pace. During the past century, thanks to scientific discoveries in other sciences, archaeology has become a powerful tool for historians. Every day, new discoveries are made from multiple excavations going on around the world. In the world of Biblical Archaeology, the interaction between historians and archaeologists has resulted in significant finds. We discussed certain procedures used in archaeology to determine where one level of culture ends as they dig down, and where another begins, and how to dig in such a way as to be sure the exact site of the find is recorded for future reference, and how archaeologists must take careful notes  and write reports, including any interpretations of their finds.

At this point, I introduced the activity of the day: I set up 3 stations, each of which would introduce the students to certain aspects of archaeology and its finds, and would, hopefully give the students a taste of how difficult the process of unearthing artifacts and interpreting them can be.

One station introduced an object used first by many ancient kings in Mesopotamia and later in Israel and Egypt - the Cylinder Seal. In this station, students were asked to learn how to write the initial letters of their first and last names in the Paleo-Hebrew script .  

Since the charts I gave the students only compared Hebrew block Aramaic letters to the Paleo-Hebrew letters, they had to first find the Hebrew Aramaic letters that made the sound of their English initials. To do this, they used a "Handy Hebrew Alphabet Chart" I gave them, which shares each Hebrew letter, the sound it makes, and the English letter equivalent. Only then could they find the Paleo-Hebrew letter equivalents for their initials.

Already, the students were looking and sounding like researchers.

Once they knew how to write their initials in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, they were asked to use a pencil to carve these initials onto the side of a thick piece of carrot.

This took a lot of focus...

... and a good deal of dexterity - it's not easy carving letters onto a piece of carrot!

Once the carving part of the exercise was completed, the students rolled the carrot onto a flattened piece of Play-Doh, and the resulting raised initials could easily be read. The cylindrical seals unearthed by archaeologists didn't only include names - often, they included images of the King and the King's chief diety as well as lengthy texts referring to the King's victories in battle.

A second station involved more deciphering of letters, but this time working in the other direction - beginning with the Paleo-Hebrew letters found on unearthed artifacts, then finding the equivalent Aramaic block letters and finally, the English equivalent letters, in order to translate words written on a stele and on a Roman coin.The stele in question has been called "The Mesha Stele" by archaeologists. Carved on this stone column is an account in the first person by Mesha, King of the Moabites during the reign of Ahab, King of Israel. He recounts his rebellion against the Kingdom of Israel very soon after Ahab's death. There is an account of this rebellion in the Bible, in the Second Book of Kings, Chapter 3, verses 4 and 5. Both accounts agree on what happened. 

Students were asked to read the English translation of the Mesha Stele, then translate 5 paleo-Hebrew letters spelling a very important word found on the Stele. 

This task was accomplished successfully by all 3 groups of students. The important word was ISRAEL.

Students were then asked to read the two verses from the Second Book of Kings, to compare what was written on the Mesha Stele with the Biblical account. All agreed that both accounts similarly described a Moabite rebellion led by King Mesha.

The final task of this station asked the students to translate a word composed of 6 paleo-Hebrew letters on a Roman-issued coin found in Israel. The word was JERUSALEM. Since no vowels were used on any of these objects (the Stele and Coin), the students had to infer what the names they decoded were from the consonants. 

The final station related to pottery finds in archaeological sites. Since so much pottery is found in most excavation sites, archaeologists began to amass enough information to create  "Pottery Typology Tables" for different areas of the world. The easiest way for archaeologists to determine if they are beginning to dig in a new level as they excavate further down is when they begin to find different styles and materials used in the pottery. Using the Pottery Typology Table for the Middle East region, students were first asked to determine the age and era of 4 actual ceramic artifacts unearthed in Israel.  After this task, they were asked to re-assemble a small, broken ceramic planter pot using Elmer's glue.

Each student wore disposable latex gloves to protect their fingers.

Like a jigsaw puzzle, they began to piece the pot together.

This was definitely a group effort, and a successful one at that.  

I kept reminding each group of students at this station that the pot they were asked to piece together was a very simple one, broken into fairly large pieces. I asked them to imagine what it was like for archaeologists who had to first determine which pieces belonged to which pots or oil lamps, etc. in the excavation, then, after sorting them, try to fit together artifacts that had been smashed into small bits. 

I'm hoping that my students came away from this exercise with some understanding of how historians and archaeologists work together to determine events and influences on different cultures, and that the information I've been sharing with them this year about the ancient history of the edot (Jewish Diaspora communities) comes from interpreting historical documents and archaeological artifacts. These interpretations may or may not "hold water," as time passes, depending upon new documents and artifacts which are constantly being unearthed at many excavation sites in the Middle East, which may change current interpretations. 

During our Hebrew Through Movement session yesterday, we focused on the map of Israel, learning to recognize the Hebrew names of its major cities and bodies of water, as well as of its surrounding neighbors, in preparation for Israel's Independence Day - Yom Ha'atzma'ut - which will be celebrated this coming Thursday.

As usual, we started with warm-up exercises such as the one above: "Koolam la'shevet al ha'shoolchan." ("Everyone sit on the table.") To make it more interesting and fun, I had the students following silly commands, such as sitting on the floor and turning around on their bottoms (La'shevet al ha'tachat al ha'reetzpa, v'l'heestovev al ha'tachat. Sit on your bottom on the floor, and turn around on the bottom.) 

Then we began to focus on finding areas on the map, using the Hebrew commands "leen'goa b..." (touch) or "l'hatzbee'a al..." (point to...)

This coming Tuesday and Wednesday, we'll be focusing completely each day on the modern State of Israel (Medinat Yisra'el), first preparing an Israeli vegetable salad under the tutelage of Karen G., together with the other 5th and 6th graders in Shira and Y'tzira tracks. Then I'll be sharing a "Heritage" lesson focusing on the return to Israel of many members of edot from around the globe, and the cultural influences the different Jewish immigrants had on Israeli culture. We'll also be discussing what Israel means to those of us living in the United States, and each student will have an opportunity to share what Israel means to him/herself.  Stay tuned!

YOM HA'SHOAH

I dedicated the entire session this past Tuesday and Wednesday, to teaching about and discussing the Shoah (Hebrew for Holocaust). Yesterday was "Yom Ha'Shoah" (Holocaust Memorial Day) in Israel. At precisely 10 a.m. on this day each year, the air raid sirens sound all over Israel, and everything - everybody - comes to a halt in the country. For two minutes the sirens sound, during which Israelis remember the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazi's.

I began the session, as I always do, reading from the novel "A Shout in the Sunshine." Ordinarily, I would not have read from the story, but this time it served as a perfect segue to what we would be learning about the rest of the session. This story is about how two Jewish communities - the Sephardim from Spain and the Romaniote of Greece are forced to live together after the Spanish Exile in 1492. The children have come to know the main characters of the story very well by now, and have learned how the communities at first eyed each other with suspicion and even refused to accept each other's rituals and beliefs relating to Judaism.

As soon as I finished reading the chapter, I shared with the students how over the next few centuries, the two communities did finally accept and learn to respect each other. The Sephardi community was the larger of the two, and ultimately Salonika (where the story takes place) almost became a "Jewish Republic," where Ladino could be heard everywhere since most of its inhabitants were Jews descended from the two communities. I then introduced a video segment I was about to play, taken from the video I had previously shown the students called "From Toledo to Jerusalem." In this video, the Israeli singer Yehoram Ga'on shares how his family originated in Spain and, following the exile, moved over the European continent and into Asia, eventually settling in Jerusalem. I shared a video segment describing his ancestors' life in Salonika. Most of this video segment is dedicated to what happened to the entire Jewish population in Salonika during the Holocaust - they were rounded up by the Nazi's and shipped in trains to Auschwitz where all but a handful perished.

He then sings a Ladino (Spanish-Jewish) song called, "Arvoles" ("Trees Cry for Rain"). This song was first sung by those Jews exiled from Spain, and a recurring line is "I will die in a strange land." Ga'on shares in the video that as the Jews were brought to the trains in Salonika, they sang this song, but changed the last few words of this recurring line to, "I will die on Polish soil." As we listen to the song on the video, no words are spoken, and the images we see are of a train and then the entrance to Auschwitz. The camera then pans over the camp (which is now a memorial to those who died there with a museum on its grounds).

When this video segment finished, I handed out an outline of the major events in European history leading up to World War II and the Holocaust. We used this as a springboard for a discussion about how the seemingly "civilized, cultured" Germans could possibly have succumbed to the hatred spouted by Hitler and his Nazi party. It was during this discussion that students were able to share stories they had heard about family members caught in the Holocaust, and were able to ask questions they had about the era. For the final half hour of our class time, I shared an age-appropriate presentation I created many years ago using video segments from the "Heritage: Civilization and the Jews" dvd-rom program. This presentation shared what life was like for Jews living in Europe between the two world wars, and what happened to them during the Holocaust, as well as how righteous Gentiles helped many to survive.

For the final half hour of each session, we joined the 3rd-7th graders in the Beit Knesset for a special Yom Ha'Shoah assembly. Below are video clips I managed to take of parts of the very somber and moving program:

Rabbi Greninger and Ben, our music director, led assembly. All the students around me were attentive and focused on the somberness of this observance.

Rabbi Greninger began by introducing the poetess Hannah Szenes, who, while living in a kibbutz in the 1920's in Israel, wrote many poems, some of which have been set to music. She lost her life when she volunteered to help the British by parachuting back into Hungary, the country of her birth, to help collect intelligence. She was captured, and eventually executed. We then read one of her poems together, called "Blessed is the Match." 

Ben then led us all in singing another of her poems set to music, "Eli, Eli."

After sharing some statistics about how many Jews and other people were murdered during the Holocaust, Rabbi Greninger asked the teachers present to come up to light 7 memorial candles, 6 for the 6 million Jews murdered, and 1 for the other peoples murdered. We then all sang the English translation of a Yiddish song, "Dona, Dona."

We then listened to TA's and students read 3 poems from a collection of poems written by children held in the Terezin concentration camp (a model camp set up by the Nazi's to show International Red Cross and other people how well they were treating Jews). The collection of these poems takes its title, "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" from one of these poems. Following the readings, Ben led us all in singing this poem, which has been put to music.

We then listened to Ben chant "El Maleh Rachameem," ("God Filled with Compassion").

We then all recited the "Kaddish" (the Mourner's Prayer), followed by singing "Ha'Tikva" ("The Hope"), Israel's national anthem, to end the observance with the most Jewish of emotions - optimism for a bright future for ourselves and all the people of this world.

Next week, we'll be celebrating Yom Ha'Atzma'ut, Israel's Independence Day - a very special one this year as the country marks its 70th birthday on Thursday, April 19th!

Shekel Game and New Stumpers

During the weekday sessions following our Crypto-Jewish Seder (see previous post), we played the Shekel Game. I always schedule a Shekel Game following the completion of a unit of study for the students.  The students have fun betting that they can recall the answers to questions relating to the unit just completed, and by the end of the game I have a pretty good idea of how much important information was absorbed by them. In this game, we covered information shared during our unit of study about the Jews of Spain, as well as what we had learned about Pesach and its rituals.

The treasurer is carefully guarding the Israeli shekels in the group's "bank."

The recorder has written down the amount of money the group decided to bet before the question is asked.

Before deciding on the amount of the bet, the treasurer has to be sure how much money is in the "bank" so that the group doesn't bet more than half the amount of money they have when the question is asked. (Notice the large poster hanging on the white board - we used our entire Hebrew Through Movement session prior to the Shekel Game to practice chanting the "Mah Nishtana.")

It's always nice to have so much money that you need help counting it!

Once the question has been asked, the group is given 30 seconds to discuss the answer. 

The reporter is just about to give me the answer the group has decided upon.

The Shekel Game was the final activity in our classroom before the students were dismissed for Pesach and spring break. Hopefully, you all enjoyed the time with family and friends, and, as usual, the time flew by quickly and we were back in class this week.

Just prior to the start of class this past week, I changed our "Stumpers and Challenges" questions on the bulletin boards to reflect the holidays coming up on our Jewish Calendar - Lag Ba'Omer and Shavuot. We'll be learning more about these two holidays over the next few weeks, but in the meantime I always like to have those students who participate in the program do a little research on their own to find answers to the stumpers. I also added new stumpers to our "Jewish World" bulletin board, to reflect the final edah (Jewish Diaspora Community) that we'll be studying this year - the Yemenite Jews, and to share stories I've discovered in newspapers relating to Jewish Values. 

Below are the new Stumpers:

Lag Ba'Omer Stumpers:
1.  According to Rabbi Akiva, what was a person's dearest possession?
2.  Why did Rabbi Akiva give Shimeon (Simon) Bar Kosiba the name "Bar Kochba?"
3.  What is another name given to Lag Ba'Omer, and why?
4.  Why do Jewish children in many countries shoot bows and arrows on this holiday?
5.  According to legend, how strong was Bar Kochba?

There are also 3 worksheets relating to the Shavuot holiday which are worth one sticker each.

Jewish World Stumpers (Jewish Values):
1.  Why was Dr. Arno Motulsky so passionate about trying to contribute something with his life?
2.  Which Jewish values did Sanford Diller care deeply about?
3.  What did a medical student say to Dr. Gold in 1988 that caused him to start a foundation to help 
      doctors treat their patients compassionately?
4.  What did the 4 chaplains do during World War 2, and what do we want to learn from them?

Jewish World Stumpers (Edot):
1.  Who was Hazana, and how has he brought Muslims, Jews and Christians together in Amadiya,
      Iraq?
2.  What is the "Hinne" ceremony?

As I mentioned in a previous post, now that Toys 'R Us is closing, I am switching to Amazon gift certificates (each worth $10.00) awarded to those students who have collected 20 stickers. If you do happen to have any Toys 'R Us gift certificates awarded by me or from other sources, the Concord store is accepting them until April 15th (this coming Sunday)!

Crypto-Jewish Seder

As the culminating activity for our unit of study about the Jews of Spain, we held a Crypto-Jewish seder in our classroom yesterday morning, and invited Shira students who were studying the same subject to join us. The result was a great success, and I'm hoping that my Edot students will be able to share some of what they learned yesterday with family and friends at their own seders this coming Friday evening. Below is a glance in photos of the event:

The room was set up with two sets of tables facing each other, with the leader's (my) table up front.

After lighting the holiday candles (props from our Hebrew Through Movement program), chanting the Shehecheyanu blessing, and singing the Sepharadi melody to "Kadesh U'r'chatz" (the 15 steps of the seder ceremony), we began the actual seder. We blessed the first cup of wine, dipped our fingers in a bowl of water to symbolically wash our hands (without saying a blessing), dipped parsley into (VERY) salted water and recited the appropriate blessing, and then began the Crypto-Jewish version of the Yachatz step of the seder. It involves a grand total of 6 Moses' leading the Israelites to freedom. Above are the first 3 Moses' putting their index fingers up to their lips to remind everyone in this secret ceremony to be as quiet as possible so as not to be discovered by Inquisition spies.

Then each of the 3 Moses' went to one of the several plates holding 3 pieces of matza, and lifted up the plate, circling slowly around in place to symbolically show them to everyone. 

After setting down the plate of matza, they each took the middle piece and broke it in half, setting the larger piece back between the two other pieces. 

They then each put the half piece of matza into a white "sack,", slung the sack over their right shoulders and lifted up rods which served as walking sticks to begin the journey to the Promised Land.

Now we begin the Mageed (the telling) section of the seder ceremony, as they begin their journey by forming a circle.

As they circle slowly around, they call upon the Israelites to join them. Three Israelites join the circle, and the following exchange is recited between the Israelites and everyone at the seder:  All at the Seder: Where are you coming from? 3 Israelites:  From the land of Egypt. All at the Seder: And where are you going to?  3 Israelites: (Joyously!) To Jerusalem! 

Following the above exchange, the first 3 Moses' and the Israelites go back to their seats, and a second set of 3 Moses' takes their place, taking over the sacks and rods.

By the way, every thing that is acted out and said during the Crypto-Jewish seder comes to us directly from Inquisition records. The Inquisitors kept very detailed notes of the testimonies given by witnesses and the accused as to what went on during the ceremony, even including such detailed information as what they ate and wore!

Below, the second set of Moses' "continue the journey" by reciting lines directly from the Book of Exodus, as the rest of us at the seder respond to them. It should be noted here that all Crypto-Jews knew the story of the Exodus from Egypt, since the Hebrew Bible is a part of the Catholic Bible, and many wealthy Crypto-Jews actually had copies of the Bible in their homes. In case you can't hear what is being said in the video clip, this is the exchange:

3 Moses’es: We celebrate Passover with these ceremonies. Before leaving Egypt, the people of Israel ate lamb with bitter lettuces and unleavened bread.

All at the seder: “They shall eat the flesh that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs. This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly: it is a passover offering to the Lord.” (Exodus 12:8 and 12:11)

3 Moses’:  For seven days we must eat only unleavened bread.

All at the seder: “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the very first day you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day to the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.” (Exodus 12:15)

Here's a quick glance at our "Haggadot" (the scripts all the participants read from). The brownish things lying all over the tables are dried figs, dates and apricots. The Crypto-Jews used these to symbolize the manna that God sent down from the heavens when they had no food to eat in the wilderness. The Crypto-Jews believed that God would provide for them as God provided for the Israelites. 

There were only 3 symbolic foods on the seder plate that the Crypto-Jews could remember: the roasted shankbone (which looks suspiciously in the photo like a chicken leg!), the bitter herb (Romaine lettuce) and parsley.  

Following the Mageed step (the recounting of the Exodus story), it's time to symbolically wash our hands again, this time saying the blessing for washing the hands. 

We didn't have the actual seder meal, of course, so I described some of the the foods they ate for the meal, according to Inquisition Records -  roasted lamb, chickpeas with cilantro, huevos haminados (eggs boiled with onion skins and vinegar for 5-6 hours, resulting in a beautiful marble dye from the onion skins decorating each egg), and fruit. After the meal, comes the Tzafoon section of the seder. Tzafoon means hidden. Usually, this is the step where the children search for the half piece of matza that is hidden away during the Yachatz step. But to the Crypto-Jews, it was not matza that was hidden, but the Jewish part of them, which begged to be found. As part of the ceremony, a family of Crypto-Jews at the seder (in our case, an Edot and Shira student) would leave the room, and then return, as the leader would chant:   Blessed is the Holy One who led our ancestors out of hiding in Egypt and brought us to freedom and light in the Promised Land. Blessed is the Exalted One who will find us and raise us out of the darkness of our hiding places and lead us into the light.

At this point, I asked two students to each read a paragraph that Edot students had written the previous week, describing how it felt to always have to look over your shoulder, wondering if anyone suspected you of being a "Marrano" (old Spanish for "swine"). Here, a Shira student is reading the paragraph. We learn from Inquisition records that each participant in the secret seders shared how they felt during this step of the seder.

As you will see in the video clip below (which will be inserted here shortly), there was good reason to be afraid of being discovered. Just as we drank the final drop of our third cup of wine, we received a very unwelcome visitor! (stay tuned)

Following our close call with the Inquisition soldier, we continued our journey to freedom by symbolically crossing the Reed Sea. This was accomplished having a Narrator quote from the Book of Exodus the events of the crossing, as 9 other students played the Reed Sea waves, Moses, the Israelites and the Egyptians very capably. Once we were on the "other side," and free, it was time to praise God in the Hallel section of the seder.

The Crypto-Jews knew that the Hallel part of the ceremony involved praising God, but they didn't know most of the praising songs in the Haggadah. So they would each say one word in praise of God instead. I printed words of praise on the white board behind me, and each student chose one of the words to say.

The one song the Crypto-Jews did recall was "Chad Gadya" ("One Kid"), the very last song sung at the Pesach seder. They recalled it because it had been written in Europe during the Middle Ages, and had been translated to the Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) language of the Sepharadim. The Ladino version is "Un Cavritico" ("One Kid"), which we had learned the previous week.  (Check my March 19th entry to hear the song.)

Finally, we arrived at the final step of the seder, Nirtza. This is when Jews all over the world utter the words, "L'shana ha'ba'a bee'yerushalayeem." ("Next Year in Jerusalem.")  This the Crypto-Jews definitely remembered. But it was not the actual city of Jerusalem they longed to see. To them, "Jerusalem" symbolized a Spain where they would be free to be Jews in the open - that, to them, was the Promised Land. They said the words seven times over, each time saying them more softly than the previous time, until the final time they moved their lips without making a sound, symbolically internalizing the dream.

And in case you've been wondering why I'm dressed all in white, below are photographs taken by the French photographer Frederic Brenner in 1988 and 1989, of two Jewish families in Belmonte, Portugal, descendants of Crypto-Jews, who, together with other families in Portugal, still observe Crypto-Jewish seders as their ancestors did, hiding in their attics or basements. Again, we know what they wore from Inquisition records.

Matza Apple Tea Cakes

These past two weekday sessions we met up in the Oneg Room with Karen to learn how to make a wonderful Pesach treat - Matza Apple Tea Cakes. These are perfect snacks or even part of a meal for the holiday (which begins this year on the evening of March 30th, just a little over a week from now!).

As usual, we started the session each day by gathering around the demo table where Karen shared kitchen secrets about the best way to slice apples.

Then it was time to start slicing. As it turns out, Granny Smith apples have tough skins, and are not the easiest apples to slice into small pieces.

Thankfully, Karen's tips were put to good use. 

And even then, it took two students at each table half of the session to slice both apples into small enough pieces to put into the batter.

Meanwhile, two other students were preparing the batter. First, you added in the oil.

Then it was time to measure out the matza meal ...

...and add it into the bowl - but not before looking up and giving a big smile for the camera !

Some students teamed up - one pouring the matza meal into the measuring cup, while the other carefully held it then poured it in.

As you can see, there was a lot going on at once at each table.

Once all the batter ingredients had been put into the bowl, it was time to add in the apple pieces.

Then it was time to stir (with a big smile!) ...

Paper cups were arranged neatly in the muffin pans ...

... and the trickiest part of all was spooning the finished batter into the paper cups without spilling it all over the table.

This was accomplished very well with a lot of team work!

Once the paper cups were filled 3/4 of the way up, it was time to sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top of them. Some students used their fingers to sprinkle the sugar ...

... while others used a teaspoon to do the job.

Our half hour cooking session sped by as it always does, and everyone had a chance to taste the baked tea cakes just before going home. In our Edot class, there was a unanimous decision that these were so delicious that it was hard to eat just one! Luckily, we send out the recipe to all the parents, so I'm hoping you all have a chance to prepare these together at home and enjoy them.

Following our weekly tefillah service and indoor recess (it had begun to rain again), we reviewed what we had learned to date about the Jews of Spain, then I introduced a writing assignment which each student completed before the end of the session. I asked them to write two paragraphs for which they had to imagine that they were Crypto-Jews living in Saragossa, Spain in the year 1591 (several generations after Jews had to choose between converting or leaving Spain). The first paragraph asked them to share their feelings about how it felt always having to look out for Inquisition spies or Christian servants in their households who might catch them performing a Jewish ceremony or even something so simple as washing themselves before Shabbat. This first paragraph was titled, "Tzafoon" (the Aramaic word for hidden). The second paragraph asked the students to share their feelings about how it felt to be "sandwiched" between Judaism and Christianity - always wondering if they might give themselves away during a church service by doing or saying something that would give them away as being "Judaizers," and how it felt when they celebrated Jewish holidays and realized they were forgetting the rituals and prayers. This second paragraph was titled, "Korech" (Aramaic for "wrapping" or "sandwich"). We'll be reading these paragraphs this coming Sunday, during our re-enactment of a Crypto-Jewish seder.