From today's New York Times:
About 400 students started classes at Ben Gamla [a new K-8 charter public school in Hollywood, Florida] this week amid caustic debate over whether a public school can teach Hebrew without touching Judaism and the unconstitutional side of the church-state divide. The conflict intensified Wednesday, when the Broward County School Board ordered Ben Gamla to suspend Hebrew lessons because its curriculum — the third proposed by the school — referred to a Web site that mentioned religion.
Opponents say that it is impossible to teach Hebrew — and aspects of Jewish culture — outside a religious context, and that Ben Gamla, billed as the nation’s first Hebrew-English charter school, violates one of its paramount legal and political boundaries.
Of those of you who went to public school, how many of you learned anything about Christianity? Maybe the Crusades, or the Protestant Reformation? How many of you sang a Christmas carol (or five) in the winter pageant, or learned to play "church music" (including just about anything by Bach) if you were in the school orchestra? Was there a Halloween parade? In your Spanish or French or Italian class, did you learn to say "Feliz Navidad" or "Joyeux Noel" or "Buon Natale?" In your world history course, did you learn about such "exotic" philosophies as Buddhism and Baha'ai? And, of course, were you asked to start each day with the God-inclusive
Pledge of Allegiance?
Eleanor Sobel, a school board member who is among Ben Gamla’s most vocal critics, said making sure the school did not stray from constitutional rules would take a near-impossible level of supervision.
Okay, Ms. Sobel. I hope you're exerting just as much effort to take Christianity out of the rest of the public schools in your district. Don't forget to reschedule the "Winter Break" so it doesn't deliberately overlap with Christmas every year. We wouldn't want anyone thinking that our public schools endorse any given religion, and, besides, the semester ends in late January, which is a much more logical time for a school vacation.
Culture and religion and history and language are interwoven. We do our children a great disservice when we try to pretend otherwise. We don't need
less exposure to religion in our public schools - we need
broader exposure. Children should know that we commonly note numbers in "Arabic numerals" and that we have Muslim scholars to thank for much of our science and math. They should know about the pagan origins of Halloween/Samhain (bonus points if you distinguish among the various religions that are currently lumped under the pagan umbrella), and the Catholic "All Souls Day" spin-off. They should know that being "zen" doesn't jsut mean chilling out, and that "yoga" is more than an exercise class. A survey of world religions should not be limited to a couple of days of "...and this is what they do in
other countries in December."
So, yeah, teach Israeli folk dancing to those public school kids, including the 17% whose parents' primary language is Spanish and the "handful" of black students, some of whom are bussed over to the school by their Baptist church.
You know what really gets me, though? This bit (if it's true):
Mr. Deutsch and Rabbi Siegel, a former Jewish day school director, said their critics were mostly defenders of Jewish day schools that stand to lose students and tuition money.
About 80% of the students at Ben Gamla are transfers from other public schools, not from Jewish day schools. Of the students who
did transfer out of the day schools, I would not be surprised to discover that a significant portion of them were there not for the religious education, but only for the Hebrew language exposure, or perhaps a little bit of cultural support. Some secular Israelis who have moved to the U.S. choose to send their children to Jewish day schools for the sole purpose of having somewhat familiar surroundings for their children, who may not speak English very well at first, or who may not feel comfortable being inundated with Christmas! come December.
While I certainly understand the day schools' interest in retaining students, I find it morally repugnant that their leaders would seek to undermine an effort to bring exposure to Hebrew language and Jewish culture to a greater number of students - including non-Jewish students.
Allan Tuffs, the rabbi at Temple Beth El in Hollywood, said he, too, was worried about the school and what it could lead to. “Jews have thrived in America as in no other nation,” Rabbi Tuffs said, “in large measure due to this concept of separation of church and state.”
He added, “Once a Jewish school like Ben Gamla is established, you know that fundamentalist Christian groups throughout America will be lining up to replicate this model according to their religious tradition.”
Not so fast, my friend. They'll have to create their own language first.
Labels: Judaism, kids (not necessarily my own), law, religion
chag purim sameach!
Chag purim sameach to you as well! As I am a horrible mother, I forgot that they actually dress up at a Jewish daycare for Purim (he's been at a regular daycare up until this year). We got to his classroom to see every other child in full costume. Thankfully, P went as King Achashverosh and we'd left his cape in the car after the megillah reading the night before. We grabbed that and the crown that they'd made the day before, and he was perfectly happy. I, however, still feel like a lousy mom.
to hell with costumes--what was in your shalach manos?
Erin -
My 6YO managed to forget that Wednesday was 'Purim carnival and come in costume' day in Kindergarten (when Purim is earlier in the week, the whole preschool dresses up on Shushan Purim) so he went as himself, a bit sad, and only mildly complained when he came home.
Onetiredema -
*Our* shalach manos - not that you asked me, but hey :) - in keeping with the theme of early everything as Shabbos was coming, was breakfast: a homemade coffecake muffin and a piece of fruit. (Thanks, Miriam!)
- LC
LC, you're welcome for the idea, but I think I borrowed it from someone else.
Onetiredema: Our Shaloch Manos were "rainbow": two hamentashen (pick two from pumpkin pie, strawberry and chocolate, because my oldest had eaten all the poppy seed and lemon ones in the week between when I baked them and Purim), a red apple crisp granola bar, because no one eats that flavor and it comes in the big assorted box, "mike and ikes" (red, orange, green, yellow), two tea bags (picked from red, blue, green, orange and grey individually wrapped single-serving packages) and raisins (I think the box was blue or purple) all in a colorful paper bag (lunch size).
Shanna: As for costumes, well, we put way less thought into them than you did! But we had a dress-up box to help out the children. I wore a nursing dress I made myself many years ago with a black-on-black polka-dot bodice and a white-on-black polka-dot skirt and a necklace my mother gave me that alternated black "pearls", white "pearls" and clear glass beads. Aaron had black pants with a button down shirt with various widths of black and grey vertical stripes on it and a white damask tie. Kids: CD made herself a nose costume and wrote "Af shel Chailie" on it in Hebrew, because she had told a little girl named Rachail that she was being her nose for Purim. (She designed it, I made her a pattern, she cut it out, I sewed it, she turned it and stuffed it, I closed the last little bit and attached the other half of the waist strap by hand.) She also helped HT decorate a past-years pink felt poncho to make it into an HT birthday cake. (She wrote "Happy Birthday H-------!" on it and drew pink roses around the edges with paint markers.) RM dug out an old shabbos candle costume made from an older (stained) Shabbos tablecloth and a white ruffled hat that was part of my costume from 1st grade. MM found his chocolate-chocolate chip cookie costume from 2 years ago (brown felt circle poncho with darker brown chip shapes appliquéd on). SS pulled a very colorful dress out of the dress-up box that has a pointed collar and said she was a clown. NL found a funny vest and hat in the dress-up box, and TT wore the clown costume that was MY's first Purim costume. MY was the only one without a costume, because he's the biggest, and nothing he wanted to wear fit him nicely. (Must be all those hamentaschen!) I was too busy to sew for them this year. (CD was the exception because she did most of the work, especially the part about coming up with not only an idea but knowing pretty much exactly what she wanted.)
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