The December Jewish Cultural School Juniors’ class session was largely given over to preparations for the Hanukkah play. Noting that they were speeding forward in history, moving to a much later portion of the Jewish biblical/ancient historical narrative, students prepared to consider the Hanukkah story from a historical perspective. After reading through play-scripts, choosing roles, and completing short auditions for in-demand parts, students began rehearsing the latest Hanukkah play (which focuses on Antiochus IV’s repression of the Jewish people, the conflict between Orthodox and Hellenized Jews of the era, and the story of the Maccabean revolt). The class worked to understand new concepts and vocabulary introduced in the play, as well as to bring lots of energy and expression to their performance. The lesson concluded with a prop-making activity; students studied pictures of swords, crowns, and other objects from the Maccabean era unearthed by archaeologists, and used these pictures for guidance and inspiration as they created props for the play out of cardboard and other materials.

At the November session of the Jewish Cultural School, the Juniors’ class continued with their biblical survey, returning to the Exodus story and then moving forward with their Torah study. Students performed another read-through of a play (introduced at the October session) that tells the story of Moses and Exodus, and then engaged in a lively discussion of the story. The class debated who they considered to be the heroes of the Exodus narrative, talked about what it would feel like to be a slave, and brainstormed other struggles for freedom where people have or could have used the words “Let my people go!” as a rallying cry. Then students continued with their Torah learning by reading a summary of how the biblical account progresses after the Jewish people cross the Red Sea, ending with the description of Moses’s receipt of the Ten Commandments on top of Mount Sinai. After a short break, the class returned to read and debate the validity of these Ten Commandments for Humanistic Jews/people in general. Students then had the opportunity to write their own lists of ten commandments/rules for all people to live by and share them with the group. To close the day, we discussed how the Torah actually contains more specific rules of behavior beyond the Ten Commandments, many of which are included in Leviticus/Vayikra, the third book of the Torah. Students split into teams and played a trivia game, answering trivia questions about these rules/mitzvot.

The January juniors’ class session was focused on Tu B’Shevat. Students began the lesson by learning the Hebrew and Yiddish words for tree, taking time to practice saying each term and then writing them in hand-folded Tu B’Shevat books. Next, the class discussed the concept of a ‘New Year for the Trees’ and made drawings of the seven species of agricultural products associated with spring and new growth in [ancient] Israel. The students then moved on to brainstorming a list of ways trees and plants are important in our lives today, afterward generating a list of ways trees and plants were important in the lives of our Jewish ancestors and comparing/contrasting the two lists. From here the class turned to reading and discussing three nature-/Tu B’Shevat-focused poems by Jewish poets (one from Shin Shalom, a modern Israeli poet who explores traditionally religious Jewish themes, one from Rachel Blustein, an early Zionist poet, and one from Yehoash, a secular Yiddish poet whose style was influenced by the work of American poet Walt Whitman). At the end of their discussion, students wrote their own poetry about their feelings of joy in and connectedness with the natural world, sharing them with the group before heading downstairs to take part in the congregation’s Tu B’Shevat seder.