Dr. Shimshon Hamerman is Head of School at Solomon Schechter Academy (Montreal). See the related article, “Judaic Arts in the Judaic Studies Curriculum”, here.

Israeli stamps exhibition

Objective: Teaching about people and cities in Israel.

A novel way to teach Israel was by creating Israeli stamps. Students were given topics and names of cities to research, which they translated into an artistic depiction. The works of the students were displayed in an exposition of Israeli stamps where each bulletin board had a serrated border like a stamp. Students guided their parents and the rest of the school through the exhibition and explained the art work. Using the Israeli Post Office Habul Sheli (= my stamp) service, over 300 original stamps designed by the students were minted. Students who used the service receive a page of their their own Israeli stamps.

Paper cutting

Objectives: Teaching tefillah, Hanukkah, and shivat haminim (the seven species)

The teachers of the school met Zipora Ne’eman, a papercut teacher based in Israel. Zipora visited the school to give seminars on the art and the craft of paper cutting. Zipora taught the history, the technique and the design to teachers in the school. The principal invited teachers from other Jewish Schools in the city to help defray the costs. Students learned the concepts associated with various paper cuts: Mizrah, Menorah, Hebrew names, shivat haminim, Biblical scenes etc. Zipora left several templates for the school to continue to practice and reinforce the art. On their trip to Israel the sixth grade visited Zipora in Haifa to advance and reinforce their skills.

Mosaics

Objectives: Teaching the 12 tribes and shivat haminim

Students studied technique for mosaic, as well as the symbols of the twelve tribes (in the context of studying Humash). One hundred kilograms of mosaic stones were imported from Tzipori, Israel. The students drew the symbols for the tribes on plywood, and then used the mosaic techniques to apply the stones with glue and grout between the stones. Another class did a variation based on the the shivat haminim. A different year faculty travelled to Israel via Prague. The synagogue floor there had a beautiful mosaic, which the grade four students replicated. The mosaics are a permanent part of the schools’ display.

Illuminated manuscripts

Objectives: Teaching tefillah or Tanakh

Students learned how to form the letters in ketav sofrim (the script used in the Sefer Torah) and wrote their names (those which appeared on their bar or bat mitzvah invitations) with a quill. Debra Band (from Washington) gave a seminar on illuminated manuscripts, teaching the faculty as well as the grade six students, introducing elements of design, and teaching the teachers how to introduce gold leaf to their masterpieces.

The students worked on designs for their names, studied the meaning of their Hebrew names and discussed with their parents whom they were named after. They then illuminated the writing based on the meaning and the character of the person after whom they were named.

Dance festival

Objective: Teaching about the aliyot to Israel from different countries with their own music, or cities in Israel

After visiting the Carmiel Dance Festival in Israel, the faculty decided that we should hold our own festival. A choreographer from Be’er Sheva was invited to teach the choreography to the entire school and the teachers. He taught for two weeks, after which the teachers of the Judaic Studies Department reinforced and practiced the dances with the students until Yom Ha-atzmaut, when 1000 people attended each of two performances. The festival had a theme of Kibbutz Galuyot and each grade danced a song from a country that formed one of the waves of immigration to Israel. The Dance Festival included all 600 students in the school. The school also has two benot sherut (Israeli post-high school students) – talented choreographers – who choreographed dances to modern Israeli and simha music.

Art and tefillah

Objective: Students will present and artistic representation of tefillah

The idea for this was inspired by a visit to the Manhattan Solomon Schechter. Our tefillah curriculum calls for a study of the content of some of the prayers. Students study a prayer and draw its content while incorporating the message and meaning of the prayer into their art work. As students repeat the study of the prayer during their years in the school, they return to make additional artistic presentations of the prayer. At the conclusion of their years in the school, students have a portfolio of the personal meaning of prayer “x”. This idea incorporates the artistic and the intellectual as students “translate” the prayer to a different language/medium.