? מה חדש 
 

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The students walked into school Monday morning to globes hanging from the ceiling and international flags tacked to the walls of the lobby. They boarded a flight leaving from the gate in the gym, taking a seat, and looking out the paper windows attached to the walls. The Israeli Fellows posed as flight attendants, handing out water and pretzels as a snack for the flight. The pilot, Rabbi Krauss, welcomed the students aboard, and pointed their attention towards the screens at the front of the plane, which went through the safety precautions before the plane took off. This flight landed in Paris, Russia, Germany, Morocco, Hungary, Mexico, India, and Ethiopia. At each stop, a slide show with music showed famous sites of the Jewish communities, people, and shuls in each country.

                                 

Teachers and administrators came on as people from each country, saying hello, and describing a bit about Jewish life in their country. As the plane landed in its final destination back at SAR, Rabbi Krauss thanked the students for flying and told them what they have to look forward to in the next four months: learning in depth about Jewish communities in many of the countries they'd just visited and more besides.

                                              I Have A Dream . . .       

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Peter Geffen, founder of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in Manhattan, spoke to the seventh and eighth grade last week about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. You may wonder how these two men are connected, and what Mr. Geffen has to do with this connection. When his classmate at Queens College, Andrew Goodman, was murdered while working with Dr. King, Mr. Geffen went to South Carolina to take his place. He was an assistant to Dr. King in the summers of 1965 and 1966, working door to door with a mixed racial group. They told the African Americans who answered the door, "we're here on behalf of Dr. Martin Luther King" and the people would let them in. The group worked to convince these people to take the risk of registering to vote. They would prepare these people for the voting test, teaching them to write and sign their names.
 
Mr. Geffen's deep voice filled and penetrated the Junior High Area as he asked the students to understand the segregation of Orangeburg, South Carolina. The schools for African Americans were labeled separate but equal, but they were far from equal. The African American schools held "books without pages, libraries without books, windows without glass."
 
Dr. King, at twenty-five, stirred people to action. His speeches "captured people's imaginations and willingness to take risks". Dr. King was a friend of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Many people don't know that when he was assassinated, Dr. King was on his way from Memphis to New York to attend Rabbi Heschel's family seder. Peter Geffen escorted Rabbi Heschel and Senator Booby Kennedy to Dr. King's grave side.
 
Many people ask Mr. Geffen why he risked his life for non-Jews. "My being a Jew is a layer on top of my humanness," Geffen responds, and standing up for people is a part of his humanness. Sixty to seventy percent of civil rights workers in the 1960s were Jews. They were the children of Holocaust survivors who were taught that if they had stood up for their rights maybe they could have prevented the Holocaust from happening. Here was another chance, to stand up, even if it wasn't for Jews. 

 

 

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After Peter Gefen spoke, students wrote letters to him. Here are excerpts of those letters:

 

-Thank you for visiting our school. You enlightened us all with your amazing experiences. I never knew that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on his way to the Heschel family seder. I can't wait for Obama's presidency on the 20th.
 
-Thank you so much for teaching our grade about the importance of helping people in need as a Jew as well as a human being. Your speech really enlightened me about the hardships that people had to go through, and how it is our responsibility to help. I enjoyed your insight into the time of Dr. King and Abraham Joshua Heschel. I hope to carry the lessons instilled upon me today for the rest of my life.
 
-It was very brave of you to risk your life to help others. We were very inspired. Thank you!
 
-Thank you so much for teaching our grade the importance of Martin Luther King and the Jewish people's role in the Civil Rights movement. I will hopefully remember that lesson for the rest of my life.  

 

 

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                 Second Grade Teaches First Graders About Civil Rights

 

   

 

As part of a larger study of Civil Rights leaders including Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, and Martin Luther King (all in honor of Martin Luther King Day), the second graders taught first graders about Rosa Parks. They began by defining separation and inequality (when it's not fair!), and showed a short film about Rosa Parks. They learned that she worked in a department store in Montgomery, Alabama. One late afternoon, very tired from her day, she decided to take the bus home, not something she often did. Rosa didn't like taking buses because the rules for black people disturbed her so much. They had to sit at the back of the bus and if the bus became crowded, they had to give up their seats for white people. That day, the bus became crowded and the bus driver ordered Rosa Parks to give up her seat. She refused.

Rosa was told she had broken a city law, and she had, but the law was unfair.

 

With scripts in hand, the second graders dramatically reenacted this narrative, bringing 

Rosa's Parks' courageous act and what historically followed, alive for the first graders.

   

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