A Pesach Seder Kit – Enhancing the Family Seder with Meaning and Fun
How is this Seder different from last year’s? This year we have a Seder Kit to add meaning, variety, and depth! This program offers seven activities for families to use in exploring Pesach themes together and creating materials that enhance their own Seders. Included are opportunities to prepare questions, select songs and make instruments, make Kiddush Dedication Cups, write blessings, make an Afikoman game, and write additional verses for Dayenu. Educators may choose any or all activities suitable to the content, interest, and time frame desired. Sources are included, and enlargeable posters/ suggestion printouts for families to take home are found in the Annex.
A Time to Weep, A Time to Laugh: Putting Tisha B’Av in Perspective
Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the month of Av, is by far the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. Nevertheless, it would be reasonable to suspect that in today’s ever-widening and diverse world, most Jewish children are unaware of the existence of—let alone the implications of—Tisha B’Av. Indeed, many of their parents may even be unsure of what the date commemorates. Most adults are much more comfortable sharing happy holidays and cheery celebrations than a sorrowful day like Tisha B’Av with younger children. Still, the date is one of great significance in Jewish history and, like joy, sorrow is a fact of life that cannot—and should not—be ignored. The question then becomes: how do we present ideas related to Tisha B’Av to children as young as eight?
It is through the common concept of bullying, with which children can almost universally relate, that this program is structured. The activities cover identification of bullies in general and historical bullies in particular; then look optimistically for empowering solutions that can provide our world with efficient tools to avoid further aggression that could harm our people and humanity.
A Wall Between Heaven and Earth: Jerusalem - Letters of Gold, Voices of Iron
This project aims to trace the streets of earthly and celestial Jerusalem through its history, songs, poems and people. Starting with a historical tour, we will deal with the presence of the city in contemporary Israeli poetry and in popular music, trying to analyze the different meanings and feelings that the city inspired in its poets. We will analyze the arguments used by parties in conflict to refer to the city with the aim of identifying political, cultural, religious or other intentions. To sum up, the goal is for the participants to be able to appropriate the city in its beauty and spirituality but also in its struggles and tensions.
The activities enter the city through the gateways of history, politics, religion and literature. But, as happened with that other wall, the real one, the point of entry doesn't matter. Once inside the Old City, streets, gazes and emotions will cross over and blend together. It is inevitable.