Archives for January 2011

January 31, 2011

Yiddish Folktales, Home Renovation and A Gratuitous Jets Reference Thrown in for Good Measure

There are 3 types of Yiddish folktales (bear with me, this is going somewhere):

Be nice to smelly beggars when they come to your door — not out of love or compassion, but because God might be testing you, and you could win a free chicken dinner and slammin’ new candlesticks.
Look at the wily little Jew trick the big, bad Goy and save his village from certain destruction for at least a week.
Life is terrible. Enjoy it before it gets worse.

This third category includes stories related to home improvement- of which the best one is:

A little Jewish couple live with their many children in a tiny run-down house in a quaint Eastern-European Jewish village that hasn’t yet been burned to the ground by Cossacks. The man, Shmulik is always being hassled by his wife, Tiffany, because the house is so small, loud and crowded. Finally, at his wits’ end he goes to the Rabbi.

January 30, 2011

Shabbat Commentary – Mishpatim

Mishpatim is the type of Torah Portion that makes B’nai Mitzvah students groan. No catastrophic forces of nature as in Noach. No dramatic family sagas like those of Jacob and Joseph. No cruel pharaoh, eye-popping plagues, or anxious flight into the wilderness. Mishpatim is mostly about laws which God tells to Moses who then tells […]

January 27, 2011

Shalom Kitah Gimel Students and Families #15

After students led the Blessings for Torah Study and cookies, we zipped through the attendance conversation, which students now know quite well. In order to review the words which students had studied at home over the past week, we played a game called “Back-Words.” Each student received a Hebrew word attached to a ribbon. The […]

January 26, 2011

From Sinai to Cyberspace, Pt. 2: Thawing out

As I reflect on the Jewish Educators Assembly conference that just ended, the lyrics of an old song pops into my head: “There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.” It’s not that we’re clueless when it comes to us knowing what Jewish education will look like in the future; it’s just that […]

January 25, 2011

Highly Recommended – The Teacher’s Big Book of Graphic Organizers

I’ve added a new book to my collection of teaching resources – The Teacher’s Big Book of Graphic Organizers by Katherine S. McKnight, published by Jossey-Bass www.josseybass.com Graphic organizers are formats for presenting information visually. If you’ve ever drawn a circle with lines coming out of it to represent a main topic (circle) and sub-topics […]

January 23, 2011

From Sinai to Cyberspace, Pt. 1: Preparing to freeze.

I’m sitting in a pizza joint in Palm Beach International, waiting for my flight to the frozen tundra of southern New Jersey. Why would I, a 17 year resident of tropical Florida be braving the Arctic cold of the North East? What would have prompted me to purchased a down jacket – my first since […]

January 22, 2011

Shabbat Commentary – Yitro

The grand event in Parshat Yitro is the revelation at Mt. Sinai, preceded by God’s promise to the Israelites that they will be God’s “treasure” (Exodus 19:5) if they “listen” to God and keep God’s Covenant. Scrubbed and trembling, the Israelites stand at the foot of the mountain, awed by a spectacular, theatrical display of […]

January 20, 2011

Shalom Kitah Gimel Students and Families #14

In Wednesday Hebrew class, we began, as always, with the Blessings for Torah Study and cookies. Then, students received grape juice and a copy of the Kiddush Blessing which is recited on Friday evening to welcome Shabbat. Kiddush on Wednesday?! As we read through the Hebrew, students identified words, like Kiddush, formed from the root […]

January 18, 2011

Tu B’Shvat – Happy Birthday Trees from the Fourth Grade

“Ha Shkeidia Porachat…Tu B’Shvat Higiah – The almond tree is blossoming…Tu B’Shvat is coming” This Israeli children’s song doesn’t exactly describe Tu B’Shvat in my neighborhood, but is a reminder that in Eretz Yisrael, trees are really beginning to bud and the ground is warm enough to plant saplings. On Tu B’Shvat (the 15th day […]

January 15, 2011

Commentary – Beshallach

Parshat Beshallach might be called “Days of Whine and Moses.” The Israelites’ behavior in Beshallach is an embarrassment, a shonda, as my mother would say in Yiddish. After experiencing God’s protection from Ten devastating Plagues, after escaping from slavery to freedom under the leadership of Moses who communicated directly with God, the Israelites had the […]