Class update – Juniors, February 2010

The February lesson for the juniors’ class focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We began the morning with a short history lesson, and students learned about the conflict’s origins in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that paved the way for the founding of the state of Israel and made refugees out of the millions of Palestinians displaced by Zionist forces. Students wrote and performed short skits about this history, and then did some more in-depth thinking about the effects/consequences for Israelis and Palestinians of different developments stemming from expanding occupation of the territories. After this, the class watched selections from a 2001 documentary film called “Promises,” which looks at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspective of seven children—Jewish and Palestinian—who live in Jerusalem and on the West Bank. Students discussed the clips, their feelings about the Jewish and Palestinian children’s experiences, and their thoughts about what could help achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians. After the film discussion, we shifted gears, and students split into teams and wrote some Jewish trivia questions; then teams posed questions to each other Or Emet-quiz-bowl style! Class wrapped up with a visit from Miriam Jerris, and students had the opportunity to share some thoughts about Humanistic Judaism and the day’s lesson with the rabbi.

Class Update – Juniors, January 2010

At the January juniors class session, students learned about Yiddish and the persistence of many Yiddish terms in contemporary English speech. Students received copies of these Yiddish words/terms commonly used in English–written out in standard Yiddish orthography–and transliterated them using a phonetic guide to the Yiddish alphabet. Then members of the class took turns sharing their work, reading aloud words like “schlep,” “shpiel,” “bagel,” and “mazel tov” to the group, and we played a large-group matching game to pair the Yiddish words with their definitions in English. Afterward, students wrote humorous short stories/monologues incorporating all of the Yiddish vocabulary discussed, and read completed work to the class. The morning wrapped up with more service-project discussion; the group voted on different project options and moved forward with plans to volunteer at a Twin Cities soup kitchen (details forthcoming–project is planned for April).

Class update – Juniors, December 2009

The December juniors class, organized around a Hanukkah theme, focused on the ways that historical explanation can differently inform how contemporary Jews celebrate and think about the holiday. Class started off with a game of dreidel; students played for gelt and had a chance to re-familiarize themselves with some Hebrew letters. Then the class worked to solve a riddle that engaged them in thinking about how the Hebrew letters on the dreidel connect to the rest of the Hebrew alphabet; taking the phrase “Nes Gadol Haya Sham,” the celebrated acronym that takes the dreidel-letters as its basis, they used phonetic principles to spell the words out in Hebrew, and employed a glossary of terms to discover that this phrase translates as “A great miracle happened here.” They discussed the significance of this phrase to the standard retelling of the Hanukkah story and its ‘miracle of lights,’ and then moved on to some theater activities. Two groups of students read two different accounts of the Hanukkah story–one a traditional retelling of the Maccabees’ triumph over Greek oppressors, while the other (supported by most contemporary scholars) an account suggesting that the Maccabees were actually involved in a civil war with more assimilated, Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem (and King Antiochus just intervened). Each group created a mini-play about their version of the Hanukkah story and presented it to the class, and their performances became a springboard for discussion about the reasons one historical explanation might be promoted by Jewish people as opposed to another, more historically true, explanation. The lesson finished with rehearsal and final planning time for the Hanukkah play “Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins.”

Class Summary, Juniors – November 2009

At the November Or Emet Sunday school session, the 5th-8th grade class learned about Hasidic Jewish history, culture, and presence in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. Students read a newspaper article together about the conflicts that have emerged between Hasidic Jews and Puerto Ricans, long-time residents of this neighborhood, and the recent influx of artists and hipster-types fleeing Manhattan for the cheaper rents and lively creative scene that have come to define Williamsburg. After discussing the article and talking a little about gentrification, the class created a large-scale drawing of the Williamsburg neighborhood, illustrating the different communities that live there, their homes, businesses, et cetera and their needs, interests, and conflicts. After the break, students continued discussing plans for a service-learning project, identifying doing work around hunger as the most important focus in their eyes. We made a decision together to volunteer at a food pantry/soup kitchen and to do some associated study/learning around issues of hunger; parents, I’ll be proposing some possible dates for a trip in December/January in an upcoming email. The class will also be participating in the November 22 rehearsals at Articulture, working on a presentation of our group’s Hanukkah play.

Class Summary, Juniors – October 2009

The Or Emet juniors’ class spent last session learning about Crypto-Jews (better known to some as Marranos), Jewish people who publicly converted to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition to avoid death or expulsion from Spain but continued to maintain Jewish faith/observe Jewish customs in secret. (more…)

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