Morah Levinson Update

Dear 4th - 6th grade Families,

  On Sunday and Tuesday we spent some time reviewing the Hebrew vowels and look-alike letters.  We also worked hard in our groups and played a few reading games. During the 5th and 6th grade class on Sunday, one of the students who had recently been in Israel, asked how Edna and I were able to read Hebrew words without vowels, and also how people in Israel are able to read the street signs, which also do not contain vowels.  We explained how once you become familiar with the words, the vowels are no longer necessary and recognizing the words becomes second nature.  We did an experiment to see how many Hebrew words the kids were able to read / recognize without adding vowels -- it was truly amazing to see that they actually new quite a few, and everyone was shocked at how quickly and easily they were able to read them!  Ask your kids about this activity.;).

 This Sunday we will begin to assess the children and evaluate their reading levels and fluency.  They do not need to prepare for the assessment and should not feel nervous about the process.  The point of the assessment is to make sure that everyone is in the appropriate reading group for their ability.  Each student will be asked to show us the following knowledge:

*   Know the name and sound of the letters of the alphabet including sofit (final) letters.

 *   Know the different sounds of the Hebrew nekudot (vowels).

  

*  Understand the correspondence between letters and nekudot (vowels.

*   Explain the visual differences between letters that look alike but are 

different.

  

*   Practice right to left dictionality of Hebrew.

  

*   Decode one to three syllable sounds and combination words.

 *   Use a list of vowel rules to aid in decoding difficult or unusual sounds 

combinations such as:

a)           When ה  and  י are silent. 

c)           Identifying the “double duty dot” on the שׁ  and שׂ.

As always, the Hebrew Resource page is available as a tool for you to assist your child on their 

Hebrew reading and  tefillah chanting. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Wishing you all a wonderful Shabbat!

B'Shalom,

Dona Levinson

Morah Schlussel Hebrew Update

Dear Parents,

This has been a pretty quiet, uneventful week at Shaarey Zedek Hebrew School.

We began our day on Sunday and Tuesday  with Tefillah. We now have two different Tefillah options. The Tefillah led by Shaarey Zedek teachers and the Tefillah led by Cantor Gutman that will train the students that want to be part of the youth choir at some Shabbat morniing and Friday nights services.

So far we have had a nice turn out at both groups.

We are continuing to sharpen our reading skills in our 4th, 5th, and 6th grades.The students are working very hard and accomplishing a lot. Formal assessment of the children will begin next week. These assessments are not something that the children need to study for or be stressed over. We simply want to better tailor our curriculum and classes to meet their needs. Each leaner will be asked to demonstrate the following knowledge:     

• Know the name and sound of the letters of the alphabet including sofit (final) letters.

• Know the different sounds of the Hebrew nekudot (vowels)

• Understand the correspondence between letters and nekudot (vowels).

• Explain the visual differences between letters that look alike but are 

As always, the  Hebrew Resource page is available as a tool for you to assist your child on their Hebrew reading and  tefillah chanting. Please feel free to be in touch with Allison Gutman with any questions.

different.

  

*   Practice right to left dictionality of Hebrew.

  

*   Decode one to three syllable sounds and combination words.

 *   Use a list of vowel rules to aid in decoding difficult or unusual sounds 

combinations such as:

a)           When ה  and י are silent. 

c)           Identifying the "double duty dot" on the שׁ  and שׂ. 

I hope you stay warm this weekend. Just think Spring will be coming to Israel very soon with the Tu B'shvat holiday that is just around the corner.

Shabbat Shalom, 

Toby Schlussel

Morah Katz Update

Dear Fourth-Sixth Grade Families:

We are beginning our mid-year Hebrew reading re-evaluation of the students.  We will begin the evaluations on Sunday.  Once the assessments are complete we will reallocate the students into the appropriate reading group.

These assessments are not something that the children need to study for or be stressed over. We simply want to better tailor our curriculum and classes to meet their needs. Each leaner will be asked to demonstrate the following knowledge:    

• Know the name and sound of the letters of the alphabet including sofit (final) letters.

• Know the different sounds of the Hebrew nekudot (vowels)

• Understand the correspondence between letters and nekudot (vowels).

• Explain the visual differences between letters that look alike but are 

As always, the  Hebrew Resource page is available as a tool for you to assist your child on their Hebrew reading and  tefillah chanting. Please feel free to be in touch with Allison Gutman with any questions.

different.

  

*   Practice right to left dictionality of Hebrew.

  

*   Decode one to three syllable sounds and combination words.

 *   Use a list of vowel rules to aid in decoding difficult or unusual sounds 

combinations such as:

a)           When ה  and י are silent. 

c)           Identifying the "double duty dot" on the שׁ  and שׂ. 

Next Tuesday we will celebrate Tu B'Shvat, the New Year of the Trees.  We will engage in school-wide experiential learning.  This is one of our most special holidays and truly one that the kids can relate to.  It's very much like the predecessor of Earth Day. 

I hope everyone enjoys a peaceful Shabbat.

B'Shalom,

Donna Katz

Kitah Zayin Class Update

Hello 7th grade parents,

This Sunday we continued our learning with G’milut Chasadim and talked about friendship and the difference between true friends and cliques. The 7th grade boys were excited to learn about friendship in the Torah as we discussed David and Jonathan. The 7th graders learned how Jonathan stood up to his jealous father King Saul in order to save his best friend David’s life. Later on we continued our song session style T’filiah as the 7th graders learned the importance and significance of the main sanctuary. It was incredibly moving to see the students feel differently about the regular prayers we go over because they realized the holy surrounding they were praying in. We concluded class by channeling our own “Dear Nancy” as we made our own newspaper column and solved problems that peers were facing. It was a fun experience and although David was away and truly missed, Erin had a fun time working with the students this Sunday.

This coming Sunday we look forward to putting our Religious School lessons into practice. We have been examining the issue of hunger in our community and this Sunday we will be going to Yad Ezra to help pack food for the hungry. This ties up our lesson nicely and we hope your kids can join us Sunday.

Have a great rest of the week and a peaceful Shabbat.

David and Erin 

Morah Hollenberg Update

Dear 6th Grade Parents,

This week we began discussing טו בשבט‎  (Tu B'Shevat)--the New Year for Trees. We learned about Holy eating and some of the Jewish connections to food. We also explored the spiritual connection between food and G-d, and the ties between the creation story in the Torah and the upcoming טו בשבט‎ holiday.

Then did some internet research to prepare for טו בשבט‎. We hunted down information and facts on the holiday and its observance. We are looking forward to celebrating טו בשבט ‎ together next Tuesday!

Best, 

Morah Hollenberg

Morah Gawel Update

Hi All!  We had a fabulous Sunday.  We finished up our lesson on discrimination and antisemitism.  Our new text, Shemot (Exodus) begins with the King of Egypt becoming scared of the Jews.  He is concerned that our mighty numbers will one day impact him, because we might rise up with the enemies of Egypt and fight against Egypt.  As a result of this fear, he orders the death of our sons, and taxes us and enslaves us.  A few weeks ago we began this lesson, and the kids were VERY interested.

This week we picked up where we left off by reviewing some historical cartoons that depict anti-Semitic images: big noses, fat bodies, sharp teeth, money bags etc… We then watched some Harry Potter clips about Mudbloods, and we made a comparison between why Hermione Granger would be looked down upon and discriminated against and the Jews.  Hermione was smart, successful and independent.  People didn't understand her. She acted differently. She looked differently.  Ignorance and Fear and Envy are the perfect combination for discrimination. And the Jews?  We had odd behaviors, we looked different, people didn't understand us, we were successful. Again: fear, ignorance and envy. 

We then looked at current political cartoons and some anti-Semitic children's literature from World War II. The kids found similar themes in the images and we talked about how this makes us feel and anti-Semitism in today's world.

Finally, we viewed some anti-Racism posters to get some ideas, and we talked about what images might be used to create posters to combat Anti-Semitism.

I was once again FLOORED by the level of conversation and insight that the kids have.  It makes me sad that they have so much to say, at such a tender age, on the subject, but it also makes me proud!  

Next week we will move to some lighter themes, and some lighter videos… a little Lego Movie action to begin our discussions on tribehood and its origins in Egypt, because you know "Everything is awesome when you are part of a team.!"

Have a great Shabbat.

Morah Leah

Morah Kleiman class update

Dear Parents,

We have started our next Unit on the Passover Seder. The children have decided on what part of the Seder interests them and have been divided into groups accordingly. They will study and do research in class and then present a project representative of what they have learned. They are very excited about all the possibilities to show their expertise. Please ask them about it and share in their excitement.  A letter will be sent out to you explaining the details of this new educational concept.

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me.

Shabbat Shalom,

Cillia Kleiman

Morah Robinson Update

Dear  Parents,

We had a great day yesterday! Your kids had a fun time reviewing their Hebrew vocabulary words using our flash-cards in a game. We finished lesson 9 in our books. Your child should have brought home a homework sheet to read with you. Please take some time to read with your child and return the homework sheet to me.

We are catching up on our Torah reading to be with the rest of the world. Yesterday we began the book of Shemot and used a play to help us tell the story. Ask your kids what is happening in the Torah now?

So happy to have Zachary back! 

We missed Sari,Addison Jacob, Ivy, Ethan in class.

Hope to see everyone on Sunday.

I do appreciate when you let me know ahead of time that your child will be absent. Thank you for doing this.

Davida

Morah Dresner-Wais Update

Dear Parents,

Our first graders have been very busy learning more letters and sentence building. We learned letter Kaf and Koof and using small hints helps the students remember the letters. For example, the letter koof in our workbook had a picture of an older woman leaning on the letter and one student said it looks like she is holding a cane so from there the next student had examples for other letters and it became easier and easier for them to read the letters. It was great listening to them sort out the examples for several of the letters. The students practiced writing the letters several times and we read sentences and had to choose which picture matched with which sentence. All the students did an incredible job, I was very proud of all of them.

We had a puzzle that needed to be solved and by doing that each student needed to circle the letter that did not belong in the sentence and the remaining letters spelled out two words and the students had so much fun being Hebrew detectives.

We shared our first students experience with the Shabbat bear and talked about what we had for Shabbat dinner and who was at our dinner table. We shared the wonderful photos with the bear and the students family. The bear went home this week with the next student. Its so wonderful to see how excited they are to do this project and each student has taken on the responsibility of bringing the bear back each week for their classmate to have a turn. They are already asking me if they can have a second turn so we have lots of excited students.

We continued our unit on Who Is a Jewish Hero? The students learned about synagogue community helpers who perform acts of longing-kindness. They learned about people such as rabbis, cantors, teachers and volunteers are all Jewish Hero's Each student shared their experience on how they were a Jewish Hero this week.

Zachary--"Helped some random person by holding a door open for them"

Olivia--"Cleaned snow off her driveway"

Tony-"Held the door open at Somerset Mall for some random person"
         "An old lady at the Cleveland Cavalier game was walking and I held the
           door open for her--she didn't have any teeth but said thank you for holding
          the door open"   "It felt really good doing something good"

Justin-Scraped snow off of mom's window on her car

We discussed how it feels good to help others and we discussed examples of the importance of being a Jewish Hero. Rabbi Starr came into our class and we told him we are talking about being a Jewish Hero and he jumped in our room like a superhero...the students enjoyed his visit and we talked about the difference in hero's.

Olivia said Hebrew school is better than cupcakes
Tony said Hebrew is better than everything in the NBA except the Cavs
Justin said Hebrew is better than Hanukkah
Zachary said Hebrew is better than Ford Field.

We continued our G'milut Chasadim lesson about Who Is a Jewish Hero and why Tzedakah is a way of helping. It includes welcoming guests, being polite, saying you are sorry, and taking care of the earth. When we give tzedakah, we are giving money to help the world be a better place. Both tzedakah and g'milut chasadim are special ways of being a Jewish hero. We will continue discussing ways to contribute to society and help keep our community a better place to live.

Enjoy the rest of your week and I look forward to seeing your children on Sunday.

Thank you,
Lisa Dresner Wais

THE GOOD AND THE NOT SO GOOD

The Torah is a never ending scroll of life lessons that keeps on giving. Thousands of years ago on the edge of Mt. Sinai, Moses received the Torah and shared it with us, the Jews of past, present and future. The object of this gift is to use it over and over again, and allow it to permeate our minds, bodies, and souls.  The students in our 4th grade core class are slowly learning the many lessons shared by generations before us.  Each week we deconstruct another phrase to help us better understand the world around us and bring us closer to GOD, our community, and ourselves.  The lessons we study each week help us to understand we have infinite control over the decisions we make and the Torah teaches us to always work towards doing the right thing no matter how difficult it may be.  

We have been studying the complex nature of Noah, and what it truly means to be righteous.  Was Noah truly righteous, or was he just better than anyone else.  In class our students have been turning this phrase over and over again…is it OK to just be better than someone else, or does GOD ask more of us?   We are beginning to learn that we must set the bar higher than just someone else, and reach to be the best we can be.  Take some time to share your ideas with your children, and ask them what behavior is good enough, and what behavior is the best.

7th Grade Update

Hello 7^th Grade Families,

Last Sunday, our learners contributed to the CSZ In Action program, which provided them with opportunities to use their resources to give back to the broader community. This project fit in quite well with the idea of Jewish “justice” which we have been exploring as a class over the past few weeks. Justice is the idea that G-d puts imbalances in the world, and it is our responsibility to try and right the scales. For instance, on Tuesday we concluded our lesson on hunger awareness… the Jewish value of justice dictates that if there are people in our community that are hungry, and we have more food than we really need, it is our responsibility to share our excess. At CSZ In Action, the learners were able to use their resources to contribute to those in need. On February 1^st, there will be another opportunity for service when we take the 7^th graders to Yad Ezra to help out in the warehouse.

Erin and I always take pleasure in learning and performing acts of g’milut chassadim (acts of loving kindness) with your 7^th graders. We look forward to continuing our learning and growth as a class.

Have a great weekend, and Shabbat Shalom.

David & Erin