Zionism at a Chinese Restaurant

We brought in Chinese food for lunch today.

As Josh was finishing his meal, he opened his fortune cookie and found the above fortune inside.

Theodor Herzl isn’t dead. He’s secretly working for Panda Express, writing fortunes for their fortune cookies.

Let Me Count the Ways: 5 Ways to Promote Jewish Summer Camp

by Carol Oseran Starin

It’s November. Too soon to be thinking about summer camp? Not at all. Now is the time to register for next summer.

Actually, as educators, we should be thinking about camp all year ‘round.

Next to formal Jewish schooling, Jewish summer camp is at the top of the Jewish communal agenda. Communities and philanthropists have learned (and educators have always known) that living and playing Jewish 24/7 has a powerful effect on Jewish identity and the possibility to transform lives.

There are so many natural and authentic connections between camp and school – so many ways that teachers, principals and rabbis can promote Jewish camping and meaningfully integrate enthusiastic camp returnees into schools and synagogues. Here are more than a dozen ideas to get you started:

R’fuah Shlemah Quilt

by Laurie Bellet

I recently made a “get-well” quilt with a 3rd grade class. The children were culminating a unit on Bikkur Cholim. A member of our community was in the hospital and the quilt was made to coincide with her hospital discharge.

The background is fleece 72 inches by 59 inches. I cut 3 inch fringes and tied them into knots for the edging. The children worked on 6inch squares of white poplin. I ironed a product called “Wonder Under” onto the back of the poplin. This makes it easier to cut and then will be used to adhere the squares to the fleece without sewing.

The children first sketched their design onto white paper to work out the format. This also allowed the teacher to check the appropriateness of the content and to check-in verbally with each student as a unit evaluation. They used the Crayola Fabric Markers to render the design onto the poplin. The students spent a total of about 90 minutes from preparation to completion. I peeled the back off the “Wonder Under” and ironed each square onto the fleece. This also ’set’ the fabric marker.

Using Whole-School Lessons for Family Education

We got this note from Rachel Margolis, Director of Education at University Synagogue in Los Angeles:

I was excited to have Torah Aura’s Whole School Tzedakah lessons in our curriculum this year. The idea of having anything “whole school” is so great because it shows the students that they can learn the same subjects year after year while at the same time getting more depth from them.

This year I planned on using the lessons as part of our first all-school family day where the theme was tzedakah and tikkun olam. We introduced the theme with some family activities, and then split into classes to learn more about tzedakah and how it is connected to tikkun olam. Each teacher used the Torah Aura lessons and prepared another activity on how tzedakah and tikkun olam are connected (continuous, deliberate acts of tzedakah can lead to tikkun olam).

Introducing BJL Lifecycle

We’re proud to introduce you to BJL Lifecycle, a set of folders that make studying lifecycle moments and practices easier for students to embrace.

Because different schools teach lifecycle in different grades, just the right resource is needed for students in each grade level. The Circle of Jewish Life, our newest lifecycle book, is perfect for grades 4-6. But when you want to teach lifecycle to second and third graders, BJL Lifecycle is the perfect choice.

A set of eight folders, BJL Lifecycle looks at vocabulary, ritual, and meaning behind birth rituals, Torah rituals, b’nai mitzvah, Jewish family life, marriage, old age, and death. They can be used in any order with any starting point, making them the most flexible and effective lifecycle materials on the market.

Each unit introduces the key vocabulary, basic concepts, and provides a story about that stage in Jewish development. It is the perfect resource for younger students. The folders unfold eight major lifecycle events using stories and hands-on activities. They utilize simple explanations and family involvement, and in doing so, students study the moments in life that connect us to our families, the Jewish people, and God.

SALE! Get 20% off Whole School Hanukkah

Are Jewish holidays getting boring? Are your students sick of learning the same thing every year?

Maximize their learning with the Whole School series from Torah Aura.

Each Whole School holiday offers different lessons for grades 1-7. Students in each grade learn something that’s developmentally appropriate and differentiated just for them. This is true curricular spiraling in action! Your students can learn something new and exciting every year.

And if you order now, you’ll receive a 20% discount on Whole School Hanukkah.

With lessons on Hanukkah blessings, Hanukkah food, the Hanukkah story, Hanukkah dilemmas and much much more, Whole School Hanukkah. injects meaningful, interesting, and fun activities into your school’s curriculum.

Act now to get in on this great offer. Buy Whole School Hanukkah. before December 1, and your discount will automatically apply to your order.

Let Me Count the Ways: Jewish Books

by Carol Oseran Starin

This is Jewish Book Month! Always scheduled for the month prior to the first night of Hanukkah, this year Jewish Book Month is November 4 to December 4.

Of course, being “the People of the Book,” we are book people all year ‘round. So, let’s use Jewish Book month as an opportunity to get started with lots of ideas for reading, sharing, discussing, promoting and writing Jewish books – and keep the momentum going throughout the year.

I couldn’t even think of a way to limit this column to five of anything. So, here’s a list of projects, activities, ideas and resources – for teachers, principals, kids, parents and families that promote Jewish books, Jewish literature, Jewish literacy.

Glass Art Helps Students Reflect on Kristallnacht

by Laurie Bellet

Friday is sort of my day off, in that I do not have to go to work at school. So, this morning, in preparation for my meetings about town, I even put on nail polish. But, before leaving the house, I grabbed my gardening gloves, a box, and a large scoop. I was going dumpster diving! Upon arriving at my last stop, the auto glass repair shop, my adult daughter (whom many of you know has developmental disabilities) brightened with recognition, “That’s right,” she said, “November means broken glass month!”

Broken glass month, those words are Ariel’s reference to Kristallnacht, the infamous Night of Broken Glass. I am in need of broken glass from automobile windows for mosaic tributes and other creations. Generally, I receive donations of broken safety glass but, my acquaintances have had a fortunate year, no car break-ins and no shattered patio tables from which my supply closet usually, and perhaps perversely, profits.

With Yom HaShoah commemorations in April, recalling Kristallnacht in November has become less common in Jewish schools. It was on November 9, 1938, that Jewish businesses and synagogues were ransacked. Glass from the smashed windows carpeted the sidewalks and streets. That night, 30,000 Jewish men were detained and sent to concentration camps. Significantly, it was on that night that violence against the Jewish population became, if not overtly legal, decriminalized. From that night on, criminal activity, targeted at Jewish citizens, was officially applauded.

Offering students broken safety glass as an art material piques their interest immediately. These irregular, pale green, shapes sparkle. They are a treasure, begging to be discovered. Although it is difficult to cut oneself with this glass, even when shattered, I reserve the art experience for students 5th grade and above. I caution them to focus intently, never to put their hands near their faces after touching the glass, just on the off chance that a glass splinter might be hanging on.

Hebrew Schools Aren’t a Placebo

by Josh Barkin

There are people who say that supplementary Jewish education — that enterprise that often goes by names like “Hebrew school,” “Sunday school,” “religious school,” or “Torah school” — is a failing proposition.

These people are wrong. Hebrew schools are not failing. They’re just a convenient straw man for people who believe that day schools are the answer to everything that plagues American Jewry. If only they could get funders to commit more money to day schools, rabbis to recommend that their congregants go to day schools, and major movements to put more emphasis on day schools.

Let me be clear: I’m a product of a day school education. I think day schools are wonderful, and that they are deserving of Jewish communal resources. But that’s not enough for these people. They think that we should support day schools not because those schools are great in their own right, but because Hebrew schools are failing. This is a silly tactic, akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face. Supplementary education and day schools can co-exist, and those people who suggest otherwise should be ashamed for suggesting an end to Hebrew schools.

Seymour Says…

This summer, Torah Aura Productions was proud to release The Torah Portion-by-Portion, the latest work from Rabbi Seymour Rossel. Seymour, a longtime friend of ours here at Torah Aura, is an accomplished educator, a celebrated teacher, and a prolific author of books for adults and children. The Torah Portion-by-Portion is a triumph for those of us who believe that more (not less) is the key to Jewish education, that students should grapple in sophisticated ways with the Torah’s text, and in the power of merging the best that traditional and modern have to offer.

Here at TAPBB, we know our readers have inquiring minds. So we sat down and asked Seymour some of the big burning questions about his new book.

Here’s our interview with him:

TAPBB: What prompted you to write The Torah Portion-by-Portion?

Seymour Rossel: For many years, as I served as Director of the Department of Education for the Reform movement in North America, I visited many educational settings and found that the need most expressed was for a straightforward and accessible guide to reading the Torah in a modern fashion. The same concern was shared by rabbis and educators in the Reconstructionist and Conservative movements.

While verse-by-verse commentaries such as Plaut’s The Torah: A Modern Commentary and the newer Eitz Hayim of the Conservative movement were designed for “reading along” with the Torah and Haftarah during synagogue services, they tend to be less conducive to reading from cover to cover. Without illustrations and somewhat without narrative, they make it difficult for teenagers and most adults to get a grasp on what really happens in the Torah text. On the other extreme was a book like Richard Elliot Friedman’s Who Wrote the Bible? which condenses modern scholarship in a popular fashion, but lacks the depth of a commentary. All of these and many others are valuable tools for Torah study, but none of them answer the immediate need for a study guide that would set the fruits of modern scholarship alongside traditional Jewish commentaries.

When I set out to write this “simple and straightforward commentary” I had no idea that it would require the next seven years of my life to accomplish, but the extent of the available scholarship was such that, even after many years of study under the guidance of many wonderful teachers, drawing it all together required a great deal of effort.

TAPBB: What makes this book different than other Torah texts?