Kitah Zayin

Dear 7th Grade Parents,

                On Sunday the students discussed and prepared for Tuesday's field trip to the Holocaust Museum. We talked about DP camps that the survivors lived in and how they continued to stay Jewish after all they had been through. We used our new technology and wrote on the SMART board ways that the students could continue being Jewish and what that meant to them. We then went next door to the kindergarden and first grade classrooms to do a joint project on Israel and Archeology. The students wanted to work with the younger kids because they said one way to stay Jewish, is to pass down Hebrew studies to younger generations. The students realized they were mentors to their younger friends and siblings.

                As adults, we have an even more important job in teaching that to kids. Although the students had a meaningful experience, it would have had more of an impact if there were more than three students in the classroom each Sunday morning. When someone prepares a meeting for a staff of 20, it is very discouraging when only the same three people show up for each meeting. David and I prepare lessons weekly and it’s difficult to have a meaningful discussion with at the most, three students. When we discuss, “What does being jewish mean?”  The importance of that is continuing Hebrew learnings after one has a Bar/Bat Mitzvah. We have seen the number of students decline after every students has their Mitzvah. We encourage them to continue their studies so that they can have a meaningful and spiritual connection with Judaism after they leave religious school. 

We hope to see you this Tuesday at the field trip as well as the remaining classes of the year. On May 3rd we have a special project with the Sisterhood and will be helping them make kuegel, for the congregation’s weekly Shabbat lunch. We hope to see as many familiar faces as possible so that we don’t have to cancel like we have in the past.

David and I love working with your students and we just want to make their religious school experience meaningful.

Thank You,

Morah Erin Ben-Moche