Hebrew School

Hebrew School classes at The Levy Library

– week ending April 4, 2024

Dear Parents,

On Sunday I saw Morah Lynne’s second graders and I read them a story called Afikomen — or, rather, we constructed the story together, because this is a wordless book. See that silver medal on the front? This book was a Sydney Taylor Book Award Honor Book, one of the books that I helped choose for the award. Three children and a dog (who has taken the afikomen!) slip under the seder tablecloth to emerge through a tent into Egypt at the time of baby Moses. Of course when they see a mother (Jocheved) and sister (Miriam) setting a baby into a basket on the river, they realize where they are and what is happening. So they help out by keeping an eye on the basket and distracting other children and animals from getting too close to Moses.

Their work done – they see Pharoah’s daughter rescue Moses and embrace him – they return to their tent, which returns them to the seder table, where they fall asleep after their big adventure. But wait – is that sand in the afikomen bag?! Ask your child to retell the story – and ask them how they liked reading a wordless book. These books are wonderful for readers who speak different languages. It’s a level playing field because everyone is reading the pictures. Also a plus for visual literacy and literacy overall because a child has to work harder to read the pictures and come up with their own narrative.

Also on Sunday, Marie gave her final lesson to the 5th and 6th graders, with Morah Leila and Moreh Danny.  She read them The Pebble: An Allegory of the Holocaust. Ask your child to describe that story and how they felt about it. We explained that an allegory is symbolic. Ask about the symbolism – for example, the black crows were very Nazi-like.

On Tuesday and Thursday Marie and I presented a two-part Holocaust workshop. We were lucky enough to have Liliana Tademar-Wilk and her grandson, Artur, attend both days. Liliana very graciously agreed to tell the story of her parents, who were recognized as Righteous Among Nations by Yad Vashem for saving 36 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. For many years her family has attended our May Holocaust Memorial program, sometimes as speakers, but always as honored guests. Marie has shared our workshop material with the parents in the classes. Here I will just show the selection of books I talked about in the context of what children and teens did to resist the Nazis 75 years ago, and what children today can do to stand up against hate.

I also wanted to mention an extraordinary book that I read to the group, The Tower of Life: How Yaffa Eliach Rebuilt Her Town in Stories and Photographs. Ask to borrow this multiple award winner to find out about the Holocaust survivor and scholar who was asked by President Jimmy Carter to create a memorial at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC when the building was being designed. And what a memorial! It brings to life her Polish shetl (small town) of Eishyshok, destroyed by the Nazis, by sharing photos and stories that she took many years to collect. Ask me, too, about Eliach’s books for adults, which we have in the library.

I will be away April 5-30. I look forward to seeing you at our two upcoming Holocaust programs, Corrie Remembers – Thursday, May 2, at 7:00 pm, with light refreshments; and the Holocaust Remembrance Day program – Sunday, May 5, at 11:30 am, with lunch following.

 

Shabbat Shalom and happy reading!

Your librarian, Annette ()