Voices from the Field
Chaggigat Tu B’shevat
There are many challenges faced by those of us who work full time in Jewish education; the lack of family commitment, the limited hours we have with students, and, perhaps toughest of all, convincing Jewish children who live in the Midwest that spring is coming in February! Tu B’shvat may in fact be the harbinger of Spring in the Jewish homeland but for those of us who greet each day with boots and a shovel, hardly.
Many of us “of a certain age” remember collecting green stamps or the JNF equivalent to plant trees. I think the connection to the holiday was tenuous at best but luckily, so much has changed.
Tu B’shvat has morphed into the Jewish Peoples’ green chag; an opportunity to recognize the species native to the land of Israel and connect to the growing awareness to ecology and stewardship of the earth that is inherently a Jewish concept.
In our congregation, we created an event that has served to truly transmit the holiday of Tu B'shevat to my hat and glove laden students in a way that has helped them to embrace the holiday beyond an effort of tree planting alone Chaggigat Tu B’shvat is hosted by our oldest Hebrew School students who take the lead in planning and serve as the teachers for the younger ones. Each year the program takes on a bit of a different shape. Generally, we have created set of stations, each representing one of the seven species as outlined in the Torah.
Deuteronomy 8:8 tells us that Israel was "a land of wheat, barley, grapevines, figs, and pomegranates; a land of oil olives and date honey."
The seven species are:
- Wheat (chitah in Hebrew)
- Barley (se'orah in Hebrew)
- Grapes (gefen in Hebrew), usually consumed as wine
- Figs (te'enah in Hebrew)
- Pomegranates (rimon in Hebrew)
- Olives (zayit in Hebrew), usually consumed in oil form
- Dates (tamar or d'vash in Hebrew)
Working in teams, the students research the species and create a booth ala the Science Fair where they educate our younger students about their item. Each team creates a series of activities designed to transmit factual information in creative ways. Some groups create tastings, others create science projects, one has the students’ plant parsley to grow for use in the congregational Seder and others plant flowers for local nursing homes to be delivered on the congregation’s Mitzvah Day. There are art projects, singing contests and of course, lots of snacking. We emphasize the Hebrew terms for each species using it as yet another opportunity to expand our students’ Hebrew awareness.
This program is merely a template but has served us well in helping transmit the values of the holiday in a creative forum that goes beyond the Tu B’shvat seder and clearly could compliment one.
Click here for more resources on Tu B'Shevat
Lori B. Sagarin has served as the Director of Congregational Learning at Temple Beth Israel in Skokie, Illinois for fifteen years. She is the former president of the National Association of Temple Educators (NATE), and is also past president of the Chicago Association of Temple Educators. Lori and her husband, Rabbi James Sagarin, are co-authors of Oseh Shalom, published by the URJ press. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin and received a Masters degree in Jewish Education with the designation of Reform Jewish Educator (RJE) from Hebrew Union College.
Remembering Ilan Ramon: Astronaut & Educator
Yadoa teda ki ger yihyeh zarecha b’eretz lo-lahem.
Know that your descendents will be strangers in a land not their own.
~ Genesis 15:13
The condition of being a stranger, a ger, is woven into Jewish identity. From Abraham through the present day, to be Jewish is to stand inside and outside ourselves at the same time. It is to be at home and to be a foreigner, or at least to have the awareness that we were once foreigners, at every moment.
This is why travel experiences are so powerful. When we travel we step out of home and look back on home from a new angle. We call this “widening our horizons” or “gaining new perspectives.” It is a basic element of Jewish identity.
Of the many remarkable features of the story of Ilan Ramon z”l, none is perhaps as striking as the effect that traveling to space had on his own sense of himself. By all accounts, Col. Ramon was not a particularly devout Jew. Yet when confronted with the trip of a lifetime, the trip beyond the earth itself, Ilan Ramon tapped into not only a deep sense of Israeliness, but a deep sense of Jewishness as well. He carried a miniature Torah scroll with him. He took a mezuzah from the Holocaust. He observed Shabbat and kept kosher. And of the 16 pages of his diaries that miraculously survived the explosion of the Columbia, one of them contained the text of the Friday evening Kiddush.
Ramon told an interviewer that he felt he was representing “all Jews and all Israelis.” As the first Israeli to travel beyond the bounds of the Earth, Ilan Ramon stepped outside of his previous identities. He saw himself in a new light. His own history was awakened, and his sense of himself—child of a survivor, shining example of the Zionist revolution, heir to the legacy of Abraham—was transformed. Talk about an immersion experience.
As we observe the ninth anniversary of Ilan Ramon’s heroic flight and tragic death, we in the world of Jewish and Israel education would do well to reflect on some of the lessons of his story. The story of Israel is inseparable from the story of the Jewish people. Israel education is inseparable from Jewish education, and Jewish education is interwoven with Israel education. Like Col. Ramon’s story, great Israel education involves diverse narratives: personal narratives, historical narratives, religious narratives, folk narratives and more. And just as Ilan Ramon was transformed by an experience of travel, great Israel—and Jewish—education is immersive and integrated, and speaks to the core of the participant.
Among the parks, buildings, and even an airport control tower named after Ilan Ramon, a good number of schools, both in Israel and the United States, have been named in his honor. This reflects a final striking aspect of the journey of Ilan Ramon: from the outset, he saw his voyage as a great adventure in learning—for himself, for his country, and for his people. As we remember the life of Ilan Ramon, we should reflect on how much he continues to teach the educators of the world.
Rabbi Josh Feigelson serves as Educational Director for Ask Big Questions, a national initiative of Hillel to promote civil dialogue on campuses throughout North America. He is a doctoral student in the Department of Religious Studies at Northwestern University, focusing on the intersection of American Jews and American higher education. From 2005-2011 Josh served as Campus Rabbi at Northwestern Hillel, and currently serves as a spiritual leader of the Evanston Orthodox Minyan. He is an alumnus of Yale University and was ordained by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. Josh blogs about Jewish life and education at www.rabbijosh.com
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Mishpacha L'mishpacha: Reflections on an iChallenge Project
This past summer Lena Benson and I went to Israel to meet with the people that we were hoping would be our partners in our Mishpacha l’mishpacha project, a project of the iChallenge Ideas Incubator. We had a wonderful meeting and I left feeling good that the program might really work.
We are up and running with the project. So far, so good! We have our own secure website which the children can discuss topics and post videos. We have had a number of assignments for the students to complete so that kids on both sides of the Atlantic can learn from each other.
The December assignment had two parts. The students were asked to write an acrostic poem about some aspect of Hanukkah. The second assignment was about Jewish identity since that is a theme of Hanukkah. It was most interesting to see what the Israelis wrote about what it means to be Jewish.
Here are a few comments from the Israelis:
Clil: To be Jewish for me is to celebrate the Jewish holidays, to eat Jewish food like Falafel, to be proud living in Israel and to sing songs in Hebrew. The most important thing is to remember the history of the Jewish people.
May: To be Jewish is to care about Israel and pray for our soldiers.
Semi: To be Jewish is to go to the synagogue with my family and to pray. I go to the synagogue every Friday night and I love to have the Shabbat dinner with my family.
Nevo: To be Jewish is to go to Jerusalem and pray for peace in Israel.
Lee: To go to the synagogue and pray for peace in Israel.
Zlil and Shahar: To be Jewish is to celebrate the Jewish holidays, to pray, to have a Bat Mitzvah or Bar Mitzvah, to do a Kidoosh, sing the Tikvah and to go to the army.
Dana and Adi: To pray in Jerusalem. To celebrate the Jewish Holidays.
Amit: To be Jewish is to go to the synagogue, pray for peace and light the Shabbat candles every Friday night.
Asaf: To be Jewish is to treasure Judaism and remember our history.
Roni: To be Jewish is to sing the Tikvah and mean it with all of our hearts.
Most of our Etz Chaim kids wrote about celebrating holidays with family, going to Hebrew school and learning about their heritage. It was so interesting for our kids to see how the Israelis perceive their Judaism in comparison to them.
Next month the Israelis will share with us how they celebrate Tu B’Shevat. We will continue to share holidays with the Israeli students and learn about each other. I’m hoping the kids will form long time friendships with their pen pals.
I really owe a debt of gratitude to the iCenter, to Rabbi Tammy Kolberg in Ranana for helping me find our partners at the Meged School and especially to Sandy Elbaz, the teacher who works with the kids to make sure they are doing their part for the project. They have made videos and shared pictures and she has worked tirelessly to make the program a success. I look forward to continuing to work with her on this project.
One parent emailed me to say that her son skyped with his digital pen pal for an hour and, when he hung up, asked when they could go to Israel.
My goal for the project was for our families to begin to feel a real connection to the people and the land of Israel. For some of them this has already happened. Hopefully as we continue, this will happen with many of our families.
Anne Stein has been the Director of Education at Congregation Etz Chaim for twenty years. In 1990 she started Shalom Sunday at the Mayer Kaplan JCC, a Sunday school program for newly arrrived children from the former Soviet Union. Before going into Jewish education she was a primary grade teacher in public schools and started a gifted program at a Catholic school in Dayton, OH. She serves on the board of NATE and is finishing her fourth term as president of CATE.
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