Preschool Goodbye (Part 2)

I said goodbye to the older class today - it was a little anticlimactic as the teachers didn't remember that it was my last day...

Anyway, some pics from Gan Dror: here.

Preschool Goodbye (Part 1)

I said goodbye today to the kids of Gan Pashosh. The teachers made a presentation to the kids, telling them that I had come all the way from America and was going home for a few days. They asked the kids, "So tell us about Jessica. What did she do here?" "she played with us." "she was our friend." "she was even your friend (to the teacher)" and then all the kids said thank you, gave me hugs and kisses, and the teachers gave me a present: a t-shirt that says 'bazooka bubble gum' in Hebrew and a booklet with drawings that all the Gan Pashosh kids made for me.

As it was the last day, I finally brought the camera and took some pictures of me and the kids outside in the playground - enjoy!

Civil Defense Drill

This week, Israel is conducting it's largest ever civil defense drill (read about it here). Today at 11:00 a siren went off in the city and we led the preschool students into the synagogue's bomb shelter. All the while teacher made dark and nervous jokes about how long it was taking, and then assured one another that the exercise was unrealistic as it didn't occur under the pressure of a real crisis. In the bomb shelter, teachers passed out pretzels and sang songs with the kids for ten minutes, along with the Rabbi and Cantor and the synagogue's president, who happened to be in the building at the time of the drill. Although a teacher asked me afterward if I had been scared during the drill, it hadn't occurred to me to be scared as it all seemed very similar to the fire drills conducted in the US - getting in lines and following teachers to safety. The real question, I suppose, is whether the bomb shelter is really safe in the event of a nuclear attack, and would the students be able to get there fast enough?

Shavuot, and Goodbye to Daniel

I played hookey from school today so that I could spend the day with Daniel before he flew out this evening, homebound.
We spent a lazy morning reading and doing crossword puzzles before we headed out to the preschool's Rosh Chodesh ceremony. The preschool celebrates Rosh Chodesh with parents/congregation members every month, but this is the first time I've made it to the celebration. In honor of Shavuot, which is later this week, the cantor dressed as the high priest of the Temple, and the kids, all dressed in white, brought fruits to be sacrificed. The Rabbi opened the ark and showed the kids all of the Torah scrolls, and gave them an opportunity to touch the Torah crown. Then, there was a skit about grinding wheat to make flour and bread, followed by some singing, dancing, and shofar blowing. It was adorable, and we were also struck by the kind of knowledge it gave the kids - in a Reform setting, they had access, at a preschool age, to the Hebrew calendar, to Jewish history and holidays, in a pretty detailed fashion. It seemed particularly meaningful to be doing this in Jerusalem, especially as it was Daniel's last day here.
We went next to the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art, which we've been planning to visit all year. The museum covers Islamic art from the 7th century through the Ottoman Empire, and we enjoyed peeking around at the ceramics, tiles, and jewlery. We particularly enjoyed the exhibition on contemporary Arabic art in Israel - it was a small installation, but for us it was the highlite.
We strolled through the German colony and stopped in the Rose garden to sit on a park bench and chat before having ice cream on Emek Rafaim Street. We took a brief trip to the Malcha mall for a last-minute purchase before coming home for a game of scrabble.
We ended the day with a fancy dinner at Al Dente, an Italian place that many HUC students have been raving about all year. While there, we struck up a conversation witha family who is on a two week trip to Israel from New Mexico. Daniel used his Jerusalem expertise to recommend places they should visit while here - a final act as a Jerusalem resident welcoming others to his city. We arrived home with just enough time for Daniel to pack the last few items and make his final trip down our tiny old fashioned elevator to wait for the sherut that would carry him away.
It seems lonely in the apartment now, but I already have plenty of plans for the week, and plenty of work to do for school, so I don't think I'll even have time to feel sorry for myself. I am very much looking forward to Shavuot (which you are bound to hear about soon!) and to the next month-or-so that I have left to explore Jerusalem!

(see pictures here)

Jerusalem Day/Student Day

Today is Yom Yerushalayim, a national holiday commemorating the reunification of Jerusalem and the establishment of Israeli control over the Old City in 1967. It officially became a national holiday in 1998, though it had been celebrated since 1968. Mostly it's commemorated by state ceremonies, assemblies and activities in school, etc.

As it turns out, today is also Yom HaStudentim (Day of the Student), the Israeli version of spring break. Apparently, Yom HaStudentim is not the same day in every city, but in Jerusalem it is always on Yom Yerushalayim. I don't have school today, which is a plus, but on the other hand there was an all-night concert (about 8pm until 6am) in a park near our apartment and we couldn't get to sleep all night, so I guess that's the minus...

We commemorated Yom Yerushalayim in the preschol this morning during our daily circle time. Mazal, one of the teachers, talked about her memories from before Jerusalem was unified, when Israelis couldn't access the Old City or Mt. Scopus. Then, she said, there was a big war and the wall between East and West Jerusalem came down and everyone was happy. She asked the students to name some big Jerusalem institutions that they are proud of -the Knesset, the Western Wall, the Biblical Zoo (that one was a big hit - lots of kids stood up and screamed "I've been to the zoo!") But most of the kids she called on wanted to answer the question "What is in Jerusalem" with "my house." or "grandma and grandpa's house." At some point during the conversation, Mazal started listing museums in Jerusalem and asking me if I'd been to them. "Jessica is visiting us from America," she told the kids, "so she hasn't been to a lot of places here before. She really should go see the museums. What else should she see?" "My house! You should come to my house, Jessica!" "My granparents' house!" (I don't think they really understood what she was going for). Anyway, we learned a bit about Jerusalem, and then we did some Jerusalem dances.

(I should mention that while the Jerusalem education was going on, I was sitting next to a little boy who just moved here from the US. He didn't understand any of the Hebrew, and he kept leaning over to whisper to me about dinosaurs. So as my attention drifted between him and the rest of the class, what I heard was something like, "And then the giant T-rex stands on its legs like a person and...we have hospitals in Jerusalem - how many of you were born in Haddassah on Mt Scopus? When I was a little girl we couldn't go to Mt. Scopus...he runs really fast because he's a dinosaur, but I can run faster." The kid from America has a little sister in the other class, and the other day I gave myself a headache by playing with an English-speaking 3 year old, two Hebrew-speaking 2 year olds, and a Hebrew-speaking 4 year old who is much more able to have a mature conversation - I kept speaking the wrong language to the wrong kid...it was a mess!)

As we were going down to the playground, Mazal said to me, "I can't believe I forgot to talk about how there are churches and mosques in Jerusalem. I was going to talk about how in Jerusalem the three religions live together, but I forgot all about that."

Preschool Notes

Preschool yoga is about the cutest activity that I've ever witnessed. It involves a teacher telling a story and along the way having kids act the story out through poses (ie. "And then she met a dog" - and then everyone has to go into the 'downward facing dog' pose) At the end of this week's story a boy and a girl decide to become friends, and the kids took turns holding hands in partners and skipping around the room.
As we descended from the upstairs classroom into the sandy outdoor play area, Sasha said to me, "no one wants to play with me!" so I said, "what do you mean no one wants to play with you! I want to play with you!" and we spent a half our baking sand cakes of every possible variety: honey, poppyseed, chocolate, banana chocolate chip, carrot, and cheese.
Eventually I said to her, "I have to leave soon." "Where are you going?" she asked. "I have to go to class soon - you know my Hebrew isn't very good so I have to go to class so I can learn to speak Hebrew better." And she said to me, "When I go to school I'm going to have to learn to speak English better. I already know a few words, but only a few." She proceeded to list the words she knows: 'okay' and 'no'. I asked her if she knew how to say 'yes' in Hebrew, but she had already forgotten. Now I don't feel so badly about my Hebrew language skills.

Preschool Quote of the Day

Alon: "Hey Amir, get this! I have a machine in my head. When I eat food the food mixes around in my belly and then it goes up in my head to the machine and the machine makes my thoughts. I have a machine in my head. Do you want to feel it? Go ahead, touch my head. I have a machine in my head."

It's Coming Up on Independance Day

I don't have a lot of time because I have to run to class, but before I forget to write about it I wanted to share some moments from a preschool celebration for Independance Day. It began with coloring in blue and white, with stickers and stars (and, like always, I ended up drawing mermaids for Nadav, who is "The Little Mermaid" obsessed). During the circle time, the teacher had six students form a circle in the center of the room. She gave three of them white crepe paper and three blue crepe paper, and had them hand each other the crepe paper to form a Magen David, which they placed in the center of the room. Then, the teacher played a song for the kids which works kind of like BINGO. The lyrics are "My land of Israel is beautiful and blossoming. Who built it and who planted it? All of us together. I built a house, and I planted a tree, and I layed a road, and I built a bridge, and I wrote a song for the land of Israel" adding one thing at a time. While we sang the song, we placed toy houses, roads, trees, bridges, and books around the rim of the star. It was all very festive, and presented the holidy of Yom HaAtzmaut as one of great pride and achievement.
By way of contrast, (and again this has to be brief because I'm off to class in a minute) yesterday I asked a friend if she wanted to go to a picnic for Yom HaAtzmaut. She said she had to think about it - she studies Arabic and Hebrew, has many Palestinian friends, and is generally left wing in politics. She told me that she feels caught between two cultures with regard to how to spend the 'holiday.' She said that many people she knows will spend it mourning, but she does not want to do that, however she doesn't exactly want to celebrate either. She says it is the holiday to celebrate the beginning of the State of Israel, which is something to celebrate, but this event resulted in many casualties, Palestinian refugees being displaced out of Israel, continued disparities in distribution of wealth and resources, etc. Somehow, it had not occured to me that I shouldn't put aside my ambivalence about Israeli policies and history in order to celebrate a festive day - As in America, where I'm willing to see fireworks and be proud of the USA on July 4 though American independance was founded on ideas such as slavery and taking away land and livelihood from native peoples. Surely there's enough to be proud of in Israel that I can celebrate it for one day without concentrating on its (large) flaws. Or maybe it's just because I'm lazy and like to celebrate that I feel this way. I'd love to hear your thoughts about national/nationalistic holidays and the value of celebrating them - does celebrating your country (or another) somehoe invalidate or weaken your critique of it?

I found an interesting article (and another) from a few years ago that is relevant to this question, I think. I'd love to hear your thoughts. And now I'd better go as I'm going to be late for Hebrew!

The Bread of Affliction and other Yucky Pesach Things

The kids at the preschool are finally starting to understand that my Hebrew isn't so great, even as I'm feeling more confident with Hebrew (yesterday I gave a presentation in Hebrew class that I was very proud of and am still patting myself on the back for it...) Today one of the kids corrected my Hebrew several times and seemed to get a big kick out of it, while another said to me, "Jessica, my dad taught me a song for you!" and proceeded to sing "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight" with a thick Israeli accent. He is three years old. It was adorable. Today in preschool we also played a riveting game of "do we eat it on Passover" the results: matzah -yes, because it is matzah. hard boiled egg - yes because a long time ago when the Israelis were slaves in Egypt pharaoh made them work hard - hard work is represented by hard boiled eggs because they both have the word hard. pizza - no because it has flour, honey - no because it is sweet and we are only supposed to eat yucky things, marror - yes because it tastes bad.

A Sunny New Semester

It is a time of beginnings. At the preschool, the first student to wear a t-shirt to school this spring was called to the front of the classroom during circle time. "This is a very good sign," the teacher said, "now the days will get much much longer and the sun will shine and it will be hot and we can put our coats way up in the closet and start wearing sandals and t-shirts to school."
The beautiful weather feels more to me like the end of the school year, and more and more I find myself searching online for interesting things to do in New York next year (for instance, did you know that at Wednesdays at noon to 4pm there are free tours of the pre-Revolutionary African graveyard at 290 Broadway at Duane Street?) and thinking less and less about being here in Jerusalem. And yet we still have months left!
Classes began this week, but were interrupted by Purim (about which Daniel plans on posting this afternoon, I think, so I won't step on his toes). I am taking: Yiddish, Sholom Aleichem, Masculinity and Nationhood in Hebrew Literature, Anthropology of Israel, and possibly a course on Collective Memory in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, as well as Hebrew. I have not yet had all of these classes because of Purim-related cancellations, but those that I have had are terrific. It was so nice to go back to class and know people in every class I was in - a bit like high school really - with high fives and reunions of friends, and sarcastic comments about how bored we are already when clearly everyone is actually happy to be back. My Hebrew teachers seem much better than last semester, and I think this is going to be a good few months.
My parents' visit was amazing. I don't want to bore them by writing all about it when they, in fact, were there, but I will tell you just a few snippets: they arrived in the pouring rain and cold of Israeli winter and were unpleasantly surprised to be stuck in our apartment to avoid wind and hail for the first day or so. As things calmed down, we left for the Negev, stopping at a Bedouin Museum that was all but deserted, Ben Gurion's Negev home - the very modest dwelling where he spent the last years of his life living out his Zionist vision on a kibbutz, and Makhtesh Ramon, the world's largest crater formed by erosion. There we hiked past beautiful multicolored stones and enjoyed incredible vistas. We traveled to Eilat to relax on a beach not unlike the Jersey shore, save that we could see the Jordanian flag waving in the distance. We ventured into Jordan to visit Petra, an archeological site carved in a crack in rocks of the valley of Arabah. It was the capitol city to the Naboteans, who intricately carved dwellings and truly stunnung burial sites out of the rock. We returned from the South to spend a week in Jerusalem, taking walking tours of the Old City, going to Yemin Moshe, Har Hertzl, the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, Hebrew University, the Museum of the Seam, and more. We even spent a day in Tel Aviv, walking and shopping, and I purchased a dress to wear at Rebecca's wedding. I can't believe we did so much in the two weeks they were here, and it was so terrific to spend time with my parents and to share my life here with them (and show off my Hebrew!)
It promises to be busy for the rest of Daniel's stay here as we're trying to fit in as many opportunities as possible to spend time with friends, see Israel, enjoy the weather, etc. on top of fulfilling our academic obligations. I do intend, though, to be more on top of blogging than I've been these past few weeks, and apologise for my absence from the "blogosphere"
Hope all is well with all of you faithful readers!

more on preschool

I was in the middle of writing an essay for another purpose when I composed this piece, very much a work in progress. Thought you might be interested.

The first time I entered the gan, I was greeted by a troop of three year olds chirping, "What's your name? in a language I barely knew. “Jessica,” I answered, and they repeated the unfamiliar “Dshess-ee-ca” hesitantly before encircling their tiny hands around my fingers and leading me to the toy trucks.

Just as my name is new to them, so too do I have trouble with their names, and just as sometimes I have trouble understanding the words they garble between lips new to speech, so too do they give me puzzled looks when I correct myself nervously while I speak. Still, somehow, we have a good time.

I had taught in a preschool before, and there I had used words freely and playfully to engage my students. “What is that?” I would ask them, and if they asked me the same question, I’d give a preposterous answer that would make the children shriek with gleeful laughter. At Gan Pshushim, where I volunteer for six hours every week, I am often silent.

Different types of students are drawn to me now than before, in America. When I was at an English-speaking preschool, the most outgoing students were eager to tell me a story or make-believe with me. Now, it is the quietest and smallest students who look at me through wide and trusting eyes. Like me, they don’t want to speak, they are afraid of making mistakes. I stumble over simple words as I ask them if they would like to play with me, to dance with me, to bake imaginary cakes with me in the sandbox. They nod, silently, and follow me wherever I go.

Ours is a wordless language, and as a writer, a literature enthusiast, and an avid Scrabble player, it was a language I had never used so fully until now. We put puzzles together without knowing the names of the objects we’re creating. We dance to songs with unfamiliar words. We ask for food by pointing, we read books by looking at the pictures.

The other teachers don’t speak our language. Whether they are asking in soft, soothing voices or chastising with harsh consonants and sharp tones, whenever they ask these children to speak, I can feel and understand their fear. They shake their heads, cross their arms, and shrink into themselves.

But when I don’t ask them to speak – how we have fun! Once I sat for a full half hour in the sand box, piling sand and sifting it between my fingers, two children on my lap and three by my side, in complete silence.

Sometimes we talk. I say something in Hebrew, probably incorrectly, and they process it slowly, and sometimes they answer me softly. If I had been busy with the more extroverted children, I may not even have heard their response.

And what have I learned? Is it a lesson about patience? About the ability to connect to people regardless of the divide? About perhaps the needlessness of language?

It’s even more simple than that, I think. It’s about seeing the students who are to shy to want to be seen, and about knowing that they have something to say, if only you ask the right questions, in the right way. Reaching out a hand might be just the question that they need, and even if I had all the words in the world, maybe it would still be the best question to ask.

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Incidentally, I do actually spend most of my time here not in preschool, though that might not come out in these blog posts. Today, for instance, I woke up early, went to class where I learned about the Holocaust - about more specifically the decision making process that led to the Final Solution and whether it is more a result of Hitler himself or the entire administrative and institutional apparatus. After that, I went to Hebrew class, where we read a bit of reportage by Amoz Oz. I stayed after to talk to my Hebrew teacher about the paper I had just turned in - the first paper I've ever written in Hebrew - which she offered to correct, grade, and then hand back before the deadline so that I can revise it and turn it in a second time if I would like. Over lunch I studied Yiddish, and in the afternoon I read a story by Abraham Reizen with my Yiddish class. The story, called "Feminine Fears" is about a woman who is losing her eyesight and is afraid her husband will divorce her as a result. I then went to my class on Mendele Mocher Seforim, where we compared "Fishke the Lame" and "The Travels of Benjamin the Third" - though as it turns out I'd read the wrong version of Fishke the Lame, so it was hard for me to follow the conversation. I came home very tired, cooked myself dinner and watched a little Israeli TV (OK, so it was American TV with Hebrew subtitles...) and then started writing this essay. All of this is by way of a clarification that I do, in fact, have a substantial life outside of the gan. (gan = preschool)

Conversations at the Preschool, and a Very Painful Root Canal

There's a teacher at the preschool named Mazal who treats me as though I was a Hebrew speaker. While other teachers sometimes choose not to talk to me because they know I won't understand everything, or they practice their English with me, Mazal, who is very chatty, pretends not to notice that I don't always understand what she is saying. We've talked about her family and mine, about education, about child psychology... all in my very stammering and hesitant Hebrew and amidst the noise and interruption of the preschool classroom, in between commenting on how terrific childnrens' drawings are.
Sometimes, Mazal says things that surprise me, and I'm not sure if I just didn't understand her. She is very opinionated and often expresses ideas with which I am uncomfortable, but I am powerless to contradict her because I simply don't have the language to do so. Also, I wouldn't want to get into a conflict with her because I like her so much and I appreciate that she talks to me and is so patient with me.
She loves the kids, and when they produce things that she thinks are good, she acts as thought they are miracle-children, well beyond the scope of their years. She'll often show me a picture that a student drew and say, in front of him, "can you believe that he did this? and he's only three!" She's also much stricter than I am used to. She yells a lot at kids who are not doing what they are supposed to, like cleaning up areas that are messy, and is very hard on them. If someone talks during circle time, she pulls them out of the circle completely. She has high expectations. Craft projects have to be done the way she wants them - if someone leaves a blank space on something that is supposed to be filled with color, she does not see it as an artistic choice, but as laziness or a mistake, and she corrects it in a way that seems to me to be rather stern.
What's most striking about the conversations that I have with Mazal is the earnestness of her opinions and her desire to share them with me, and also her lack of knowledge of the US. Many of the people I speak to, even if they are Israelis, have been to the US, speak some English, etc. Mazal has done neither. She has one son who is Haredi and has studied in Brooklyn, and that is her experience of the US. She doesn't understand really how big it is and how many differences there are regionally. She'll say things like, "Do you know this singer of Jewish children's music? He's from the US" and not realize how silly that statement is.
Today we talked about three topics that each seemed rather striking to me. First, we talked about men, and love. She was joking about how after the wedding men are no longer interested in the women they are with, whereas before the wedding they are very attracted to their partners and life is good. She was talking to another teacher about it but I was nearby and she put her arm around me and said, "That's right, isn't it Jessica, it's good to be living with a boyfriend!" It was all in jest but it brought out to me the way that gender is in some ways much more strongly delineated here than in the US, even though here women are also in the front lines of the army. There's a strong masculine identity here in Israel that is complex and I don't really understand it. I only know that in Hebrew class I often find myself in arguments with the teacher when she talks about gender, I've even found myself close to yelling at her about it, and I get very frustrated because there are some women in my other class who claim to "hate feminism" even though feminism is what brought them to university in the first place....
The second topic of interest was when Mazal asked me what people in the US think of the situation here in Israel. I'm being asked all the time by friends at home what people in Israel think of the situation, but this is the first time I've been asked the question from the other side. I didn't know how to answer, and it was hard because of both the language barrier and the situation - in the middle of a group of kids, while helping them put together puzzles. I said something about how the US is a big country with many different people with many opinions. Mazal said that she was worried about Obama becoming president. She asked if there was any way for him to be taken out of office if he proved to be bad for the country or anti-Israel, and was disappointed when I told her that there's no vote of no confidence in the US governmental system. She told me that she was concerned about Obama because he is Arab, and Muslim. I told her that he was Christian, but that it didn't really matter what his religion is, just his beliefs. She said that even if he says he's a Christian, he isn't a real Christian because he is of Arabic background. I told her that perhaps in the US it is different from here insofar as peoples' political beliefs are not necessarily connected to religion. This was an inaccurate statement both in the case of the US, where religion is often very tied to politics, and in the case of Israel, where religion does not have to be the biggest factor in deciding politics, but again, it was a hard conversation to have for a number of reasons. In any case, the conversation ended soon because one kid hit another, who started to cry, and that was the end of that.
Later, Mazal talked to me about violence in the schools. She said that it was very hard to teach kids not to hurt other people, and then know that when they grow up they will have to hurt people when they are in the army. She also talked about how big a problem violence in the Israeli school system is, and during circle time she asked the kids to talk a bit about times when other kids hit them, and how it made them feel, and admonished them never to use their fists instead of their words.
I don't have time to analyze these three conversations as I have to run to class, but I just thought they might be interesting glimpses into the mind of one Israeli preschool teacher.

On a more fun note, let me tell you a little anecdote about preschool. I was building with blocks when a kid came up to me with a little plastic crocodile with an open mouth and a giant plastic saw with a yellow handle. "I'm cutting his mouth," he said. "Why?" I asked, "did he ask you to?" "Yes," he replied. "I'm cutting his mouth because there is a problem with his teeth." Let's reiterate the picture: tiny crocodile, giant plastic saw. Dentistry.

An Update from Jessica

It's been a long time since I've written (sorry) and the reason for this is that despite everything that you're watching on TV and reading in the newspapers, things in Jerusalem have actually been very quiet and normal. Students still gather in a throng to push each other impatiently as they climb onto the buses, nonplussed about the violence nearby and the implications that this kind of violence has had on the past for the safety of bus-riders. Still there are people on the streets, going about their business, honking their car horns, eating outside next to these strange outdoor-heater contraptions on the chilly Jerusalem nights, joking, laughing, and many of them wearing funny hats. (My friend Anka just purchased a VERY funny hat - it looks like an old fashioned sleeping cap, only it is made out of fleece and she wears it outside and not to bed. Terrific.)

Today at the preschool a student had just come back from being sick for a few days, and the teachers asked the rest of the children to thank G-d together for their friend's recovery. I thought this was sweet and sort of exciting, that the kids could pray such ancient words and understand them (I assumed) as they were in their mother tongue. Later, some kids were playing in the sand and "baking" bread for me to taste, and one did the motzei before trying to shove the sand between my lips. I noticed that he stumbled over and mispronounced the words, "hakotshi lechem m' ha'aretz" just like any old American kid might have done. So maybe these very old prayers which don't sound that much like contemporary speech are just as foreign and strange to the two year olds as the "Pledge of Allegience" was to me when I was a kid "And to the mapudik for which it hands, one nation, under G-d, inderisable..."

In any case, it does seem that "G-d talk" is more a part of secular Israeli culture than it is of secular American culture. "Thank G-d" is not an uncommon answer to "How are you?" even for a secular Israeli. I think G-d is a more accessible concept for Jerusalemites than for, say, New Yorkers, and phrasing things in terms of G-d comes more easily here. I'm not sure if I believe in G-d, but I kind of like the idea of being able to say G-d without sounding very religious. It seems like it would be easier to become comfortable with the concept if I didn't feel so, well, Christian when saying it.

In other news, I've been reading about social constructionism in my Multiculturalism class, and I think it is terrific. I don't want to bore you with it or go on about it, but I just want to say that I get such an emotional high when I read a theory that I completely buy, and that addresses and explains thoughts that I've had before. It is very exciting for me, and I think I'll be considering and reconsidering what I read for a very long time. Also, it's been a very productive few days for me, if a very lonely few days, as I've been pushing myself to get work done while Daniel is away. I've been working on a Hebrew project, a Holocaust paper, and more. I've also started working toward my personal goal of reading my very first whole book in Hebrew. I think that will take a while, but I'm already 20 pages into it, so we'll see. Wish me luck!

A Quick Preschool Moment

I'm sitting in the middle of a group of 2 and 3 year olds playing with oversized legos when one kid marches up to me holding a lego tower horizontally and, with a giant grin, announces, "I'm playing the guitar." I quickly fashion myself a tower of similar proportions and say, "I'm playing the guitar too!" One of the teachers smiles at me and suggests, "Maybe you two can sing us a song." Before I know it, little Tal and I are standing in front of a group of five or six wide eyed children singing "Hiney Ma Tov" and pretending to strum our guitars. Soon, other kids join in, and each hands me his or her guitar for me to play it for a while before they have the courage to play it on their own. Eventually we start on other instruments - trumpets, flutes, drums, violins, harmonicas... We're jamming together to "Hiney Ma Tov" and the other teacher watches, shakes her head, and laughs.

Birthday Party: Gan Pshushim Style

What a day at the preschool! It started when I entered the playroom and a kid asked me to look at a book with her. Sure, I could read it, but I'd have to read it slowly and probably couldn't do it very dramatically on the first run-through. So, instead, I turned the pages and looked at the pictures with her, and said "what's this?" and "very good!" whether or not I knew if she'd said the right answer.
The kids were getting ready for their Hannukah party next week, where they will do some dances for their parents. One of the teachers led the kids in the dancing, which involved spinning around like dreidels and dancing in a circle. One dance also involves a candle made out of tissue paper, a toilet paper roll, and aluminum foil. Some kids decided to destroy their candles rather than dance with them, which made the teachers pretty upset. One teacher in particular is quite strict - when kids are following her instructions she provides a lot of positive reinforcement, but when they are not, she is quick to anger, telling them to leave the room because they can't particpate in the activity, or, in this case, even that their parents will be sad because they don't know the dances. I felt like maybe that was a bit extreme...
In any case, in one of the dances, the kids were supposed to choose partners, and I have to say that I felt a bit like the kid at the sixth grade square dancing segment of phys ed, who is deeply nervous that no one will ask her to be his partner. Fortunately, one little girl went straight up to me, and grabbed both of my hands emphatically. This girl, whose name I still have yet to learn, was attached to me most of the morning.
The absolute highlite of the morning, and the real reason I'm writing this post, was the birthday party. I am in love with what they do here for birthdays. It was so special and so celebratory that, I'm embarassed to admit, it made my eyes water a little bit. The birthday boy's parents, grandparents, and aunt all came to the classroom for the party. The teachers had the kids sit in a semicircle, and had the birthday boy, Tal, sit behind a decorated table at the front of his room. They put a gold seat cover over his little chair, and a crown on his head, and they called him the Groom of the day. In fact, the whole ceremony reminded me a bit of a wedding, with everyone entertaining the Groom. Everyone sang several songs to him, and then while the very long-lasting candles burned, Tal danced in the center of the circle with his grandfather, and then all the kids joined in the dancing. When the dancing was through, Tal's teacher set out three hula hoops (because Tal is turning three) and had him jump through all three. They played a few other simple games with him, and then he blew out the candles. His mother took out some puppets who entertained the kids for a while, and then the teachers gave Tal a present - a toy guitar because he is very enthusaistic about toy guitars and apparently already has five of them at home. Then, he sat in the middle of the room, and each kid took a turn giving him a hug or kiss, or saying mazal tov to him. Then, a teacher and his mother lifted him up four times on his chair - three for his age and one for next year. Then, all the kids ate a delicious cake (I had a piece too!)
After the birthday party, we went outside to play, and I found myself in a group of kids baking cakes out of sand. We had a chocolate cake (pronounced sho-co-lad, but the kid who was baking it, who can't speak very well yet, called it coo-coo-lad), a banana cake, and a glass of milk with olives in it (only in Israel...). We later played the very fun game where I pretend to be asleep and the kids pretend to wake me up. Over, and over, and over again, until it was time for me to leave.
So it was a pretty fun morning. Now I have to do some Hebrew homework before I go to Yiddish class this afternoon. Daniel has a mid-day break, and Tuesdays are fun because we get to see each other in the middle of the day, as he has enough time to come home, cook lunch with me, and do a little homework. He has Rav Siach (a dialogue group between Rabbinical students from a variety of schools and denominations) until late into the night.

Today at the Preschool

I think my day at the preschool was even better than my experiences last week. Some of the kids recognized me and were excited to see me, and I felt much more comfortable and felt that I could take more initiative. One thing that I noticed about this preschool is that they don't read books to the kids all together - they take them in separate groups, which I think has its benefits because the kids are closer to the book and can feel the pages, see the pictures, etc. The discipline is stricter here than I am used to, or at least the way of expressing it. It varies between teachers, but one teacher in particular is given to stern reprimands and harsh threats and declarations such as "If Yael doesn't tidy the room she won't be able to play with dolls for the rest of the week" - which, I'm guessing, is an empty threat. The teachers also seem a bit more distant from their students than I am used to - when the puppet lady comes in to tell a story, the teachers sit in chairs to the side and the kids sit on the floor. I sat on the floor with a kid in my lap, and no one seemed uncomfortable or upset, but my behavior did seem to be unusual. Also, when we were playing outside, the adults were all sitting together and watching the kids, rather than playing with them. This has its advantages, as I think it is important for the kids to learn to play together, but I think it is also important for them to learn that adults are excited about what they are doing and want to be part of it.
There are a lot of things that I really like about this preschool though - in some ways it is more informal than I am used to. They have a lot of space and kids can wander between rooms as they please, which means that the play is less structured. Rather than having several stations at which kids can play, they basicallyhave the run of the place and can do whatever they want, within certain guidelines. They take turns eating, there's always one craft going on that they can choose to take part in, and otherwise there are dolls, a kitchen area, a big room with foam toys and a climbing frame, and legos. The teachers encourage creative play, and the kids are learning to sing, to rhyme, and to imagine. One major difference is bathroom etiquette - which is very much related to space. Rather than the bathrooms being a separate place down the hall, the bathrooms are located right off of the playroom, and diaper changing happens in the playroom itself. The bathroom has two tiny toilets and no stalls - kids wander in and out and see their friends going to the bathroom, which encourages them to try it even if they aren't yet potty trained. There is no gender separation in the preschool bathrooms, and no self-consciousness about it at all. Teachers go to the bathroom in a no-kid area. One last interesting thing: all the teachers are women, and the two head teachers wear aprons, which seems somewhat old-fashioned. I don't know what the apron is for, but I can guess, as a boy wet his pants today and then promptly sat in my lap, so I can imagine why a preschool teacher would like to have a little protection.
Speaking of gender, it's worth noting that both Daniel and I have only male professors and only female Hebrew instructors. Is this a coincidence? We have no idea, but it seems worth noting.
Preschool was very fun today. I played with dolls with two girls while two boys chased me around the room and pretended to be lions. I baked cookies in the sandbox with the help of ten little sets of hands. One student in particular grew quite attached to me and held my hand for about an hour, following me wherever I went. I was sorry to see that he started to cry when I had to go home...
Today at the preschool the puppet lady told a long story about a girl making sufganiot, so when Daniel and I went to the shuk during his long Tuesday lunch break, we bought our first sufganiot (jelly donuts) of the season. I'm actually not big on donuts, but I was excited about the idea of them being all around in place of candy canes and Christmas lights...

Today at the Preschool

I entered and was immediately greeted by a crowd of people who came up to my knee smilingly calling out to me "What's your name? What's your name?"
We read the very hungry caterpillar in Hebrew, as well as a few other stories, watched a puppet performance, did a dreydel dance, played with ring toss games, and piled sand on one another. All in the few hours between breakfast and lunch (after which they will take a nap, and I will go to class).

A visit to the gan (preschool)

I went to visit the preschool at Har El today (Har El is a Reform Shul around the corner from our apartment) as I plan on volunteering there twice a week. Oh it was so great. I came at the beginning of circle time and stayed until its end. We did Havdalah with Cantor Evan (whose wife, incidentally, went to Lake Braddock Secondary School, like me, and was a member of Adat Reyim, the synagogue where I went to high school, and went to UVA), and all of the kids sang along. After the Cantor left, the teacher told a story about a man who prayed for rain - it's amazing how differently rain is valued here, it is a huge topic of conversation and Israelis are so joyful to see the rain when it comes and always say that it is not enough. There is a droubt in Israel, btw, which explains why Israelis look forward to rain while Americans see it is a pain in the neck. The student of the week stood up while the teacher read what her parents had written about her weekend, which had included eating popcorn, so the student passed some popcorn out to the class (there are about 20 or so 3 year olds in the class). Then, they all washed their hands, went to the bathroom, and pushed together in a throng to get out the door and go outside - a bit like grown up Israelis getting on to the bus. Lines are not really part of Israeli culture at all. It was pretty fun to experience preschool all in Hebrew, though it will be sort of embarrassing not to understand what's going on in the classroom as well as the preschool students do. The teacher is excited to have me though, and tells me that she believes that language is not essential to communicating with or playing with small children. I totally agree. I'm sure you'll be hearing much more about preschool in upcoming posts.