Shalom Boneh parents!
I hope that this Passover finds you happy and full of delicious matza-based foods.
Here in Israel, the Boneh participants are discovering the unique aspects of Pesach in Israel – from the bread aisles closed in supermarkets to the many festivals taking place across the country, including a music festival at home on Ein Gev. And of course, all this chofesh is a good opportunity to let you know a bit more of what has been going on with them these past few weeks.
Three weeks ago, we wrapped up our look at the pre-modern era with a unit on Jews on the Christian world. We tackled the persecution of the Crusades and the Inquisition, [some other stuff] and also the unique culture of the Jews that developed during that time – including a look at the legend of the Golem. That week we also went out to Tel Aviv for a siyur in the Diaspora Museum, a museum that gives interactive expression to so much of what we talked about in Jewish history. Then just for fun we went down to trendy Rothschild Boulevard in south Tel Aviv for a photo-musical exploration of Israeli city culture.
The following week we looked into onset of modernity, and the new challenges and opportunities faced by the Jews at that time and still today. The coursework dealt both with Western Europe’s Jewish emancipation, where Jews first faced the question of choosing between different national identities, and Eastern Europe’s cultural changes among Jews in the face of continued and increased persecution. We then delved into many of the answers Jews chose in response, including the Reform movement, modern Orthodoxy, assimilation, immigration, communism and Bundism. That week we also did a project creating profiles on the website Facebook for intellectual and political figures from that era and chugim on the literature, music, and philosophy of this era. Below you can see a picture of a creative chug building a mock shtetl out of edible ingredients:
The last full module before chofesh was on another movement from that time, Zionism. The participants learned about the advent of European nationalism and how, along with the Dreyfuss Affair, that sparked a young Austrian journalist named Theodor Herzl to create a vision for a Jewish home in Israel. They then moved on to a look at the different streams that developed within Zionism – religious, cultural, political, revisionist and labor – and where those streams are today. Anton Marks of Kvutzat Yovel came to speak to the Boneh about the origins of Zionism, and they also watched a movie. The week’s project was to create children’s story-books which told the story of Jewish history from the perspective of the different Zionist streams. The books came out beautifully and the stories expressed a lot of meaning in a very creative way, as you can see here:
Finally we kicked off Pesach chofesh with two days of study about what is Passover, including Muki Tzur, renowned historian and former mazkir of the Kibbutz Movement, speaking with the shnatties about kibbutz Passover through the years. Then the shnatties split into different teams which created different elements of their own Passover seder using different media – written materials, songs, art, decorations, food, games and drama. Of course the big finale was the seder itself, which was beautiful, interesting and tasty! Have a look:
The shnatties have also been continuing on with the Hebrew classes, their hadracha (leadership) course, their jobs in different kibbutz anafim (branches) and their yemei kvutza (group days), as well as enjoying fierce games of ping-pong and foozeball around the house and finally getting to see Ein Gev in good and sunny weather. Also 20 of them traveled to Ramat Gan for the Israel-Greece World Cup qualifier and many others have been traveling on their weekends off. Finally now all are relaxing and enjoying the chofesh, and we will all be back together to start again next Sunday the 19th.
