JETS - Guest Post

According to recent studies online learning is becoming increasingly popular among classroom-based and home-based students worldwide. College-level studies went online soon after the Internet began to be widely used while over the course of the last decade, high school, middle school and elementary school studies have become increasingly available on the web as well.

Jewish educational institutions have been slower to integrate online learning models into their frameworks but today, almost all non-Haredi Jewish Day Schools and even many afternoon schools are including some form of online Jewish learning in their curriculum. In addition, many Jewish home-schooling families and families who live in remote communities where there are no formal Jewish schools are turning to online Jewish learning as a tool which introduces Jewish education and Hebrew studies to their students. 

JETS Jerusalem EdTech Solutions offers a variety of online Jewish learning opportunities. The program began in 2009 as a vehicle by which Israel-based teachers could teach Hebrew and Jewish studies in a dynamic interactive atmosphere with classes and groups of students from around the world.

JETS web-based learning is appropriate for multiple situations. It can be included as enrichment for Day School or afternoon Hebrew School classes or as a partnership between Jewish classrooms outside of Israel and Israeli classes. It is also employed as a core Jewish learning program for pre-teens and teens who either don't have access to a community Jewish school or who don't fit into their area's existing Hebrew/Jewish schools.

JETS courses include Hip Hop Hebraics in which students learn conversational Hebrew in a vibrant and meaningful format. Older day school and supplementary Hebrew school students can delve into core curriculum studies, such as Talmud and other Jewish textual studies with the Israel-based JETS teacher who brings the material alive as the class examines the significance of the ancient texts in today's modern world.

Other popular courses include Contemporary Jewish Issues, a multi-part series on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the deeper, spiritual meanings of Jewish holidays, Ancient Israel (a series of videos and related activities to enrich students' background on lifestyles in ancient times) and more.

JETS presents its programs in a non-denominational atmosphere that is inclusive of all Jewish streams of thought.  JETS presents Israel from a Zionistic perspective which encourages students to relate to Israel as an integral part of their own lives.

JETS also offers JConnecT, a dynamic program of Online Sunday School. JConnect presents Hebrew/Jewish studies to students who want to learn about Judaism and Israel while accessing the "classroom" from their own home. This program, recently profiled by the Jewish Military organization Jews in Green,  allows students to participate, virtually, in the Hip Hop Hebraics and Contemporary Jewish Issues programs (choose both classes or  just one class) which meet online every Sunday morning throughout school year. The classes present a Jewish Identity component of the students' Bar and Bat Mitzva studies both before and after the actual Bar/Bat Mitzvah date. Upcoming free Open Houses enable students, their families and other community members to join a sample lesson and experience the power of online Jewish learning.  

Happy Birthday

A musical treat for my birthday

The Beatles (or at least 1/4 of them - Paul McCartney):



The Simpsons (and the late Michael Jackson)



Stevie Wonder



And finally, since 44 is a multiple of 11, it is really my 40th birthday, just "One Louder". Thanks Spinal Tap.

You have much, sons of Levi

Next week (well this week, starting at Mincha) we read the parsha of Korach, when Korach and a team from the tribe of Reuven challenge Moshe's leadership. They claim that the entire congregation is holy, so why should Aharon be singled out as High Priest. They accuse Moshe of nepotism, and end up digging a bit hole for themselves.

Moshe tells them not to fight him, using the words "רב לכם בני לבו" - ye take too much upon you, ye sons of Levi.'(Bamidbar 16:7). But literally it can be read as "there is plenty for you, sons of Levi."

Here are some music videos to help you remember this concept.
First, Levi (Stubbs) who was the lead vocalist for the Four Tops




This Levi embodied selflessness insofar as the 'minhag' at the time was for the lead singer to get the headline, and have a backing band.(in contrast to other Motown acts such as  Smokey Robinson and the Miracles or Diana Ross and the Supremes). He wasn't seeking to take greater leadership upon himself.


Then Billy Bragg, reminding you that it is not easy being a Levi (Levi Stubbs' Tears)



I saw Billy Bragg live (at Victoria University) in 1986 or therabouts. It was just him and a guitar and a working class accent, but it was one of the best concerts I have ever been too (I saw him again many years later in Edinburgh with "the Blokes" and that was good, but not as great - perhaps because I was older, perhaps because he was older too).

There was a great musical called "Little Shop of Horrors" based on a film of the same name

 

The musical was turned into a movie, also called "Little Shop of Horrors", and the plant (named Audrey II) was voiced by Levi Stubbs. In this role, Levi used his normal baritone voice, instead of the higher tenor that he sang in the Four Tops.

 

Here is Audrey II looking kind of cute at the beginning of the movie (can you tell that Frank Oz directed it?)

 

 

But by the end of the movie, Audrey II tries to take over the world. And has lots and lots of little Audrey IIs

 

 

Levi Stubbs (as Audrey II) gets what is coming to him. As do the little plants.

רב לכם בני לוי

Irena Sendler - the Forgotten Holocaust Hero

** A Guest Post From Laurie R. **

The recent memorial commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the passing of Baruch Spiegel, one of the last remaining survivors of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto revolt, have sparked renewed interest in many of the previously unknown events of the ghetto during the war years.

One of these stories revolves around the actions of Polish woman, Irena Sendler, who was dubbed the "female Oskar Schindler" for her success in saving thousands of Jewish lives during the dark days of the Nazi occupation of Poland.

Sendler was a young Polish social worker in 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland. She joined the Zagota, a Polish underground, and in the first months of the occupation was able to help over 500 Jews escape the Nazi dragnet.

In 1940 Sendler moved to Warsaw where she procured false papers that identified her as a nurse, enabling her to enter the Warsaw ghetto to bring in food and medicine. Sendler quickly ascertained the Nazi's ultimate goal for the ghetto and she began to smuggle children out to be safely hidden with sympathetic Polish families, in Polish convents and in orphanages.

At the beginning Sendler concentrated on bringing out the ghetto orphans but as time went on she began to approach Jewish parents to, as she later said, "talk the mothers out of their children." She begged the parents to allow her to remove their children, convincing them that if they remained in the ghetto, they had no chance of survival.

It is estimated that, all in all, Sendler smuggled out over 2500 children. The youngest children were often sedated and smuggled out in toolboxes, luggage and other bags -- on occasion Sendler placed them in a carrier under a barking dog to deter the Germans from further investigation. 

Sendler carefully documented the names and hiding places of the children that she saved. She wrote the pertinent information on tissue paper which she then inserted into glass jars and buried in her neighbor's garden. Sendler believed that this information would allow the children to be reunited eventually, with their families or, if that was not possible, with their Jewish community.

In 1943 Sendler was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the notorious Piawiak prison. She was tortured by the Nazis who broke both of her feet but she never revealed any information about the Zagota or the whereabouts of "her" children. After several months her Zagota comrades were able to bribe a German guard who place her name on a list of executed prisoners and smuggled her out of Piawiak. Sendler remained in hiding for the duration of the war.

In 1999 a group of Kansas City non-Jewish schoolgirls heard a rumor about Sendler's activities and decided to investigate as part of a unit that they were studying about the Second World War. Their research led them to Sendler, who was still alive at that time, and ultimately, they met Sendler and interviewed her extensively.

The girls turned the account of Sendler's actions into a project, "Life in a Jar,". Through funding from Jewish education reformer Lowell Milken the Irena Sendler project eventually expanded to include a book, a website and a performance that has been viewed by thousands of people in audiences throughout the world.

New online classes - Rabbi Akiva and his students

I am giving another series of classes on WebYeshiva.org, beginning tonight.

In this class we will learn about the lives, history, philosophy and teachings of Rabbi Akiva and five of his students; Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Yossei, Rabbi Shimon, and Rabbi Elazar ben Shamua. We will have two classes on Bar Kochba and the possible connection to the deaths of Rabbi Akiva's students mourned during the counting of the Omer between Passover and Shavuot. Additionally, we will learn about Elisha ben Avuyha, who became an apostate because of the things he saw during that time.



(This is not necessarily an exact picture of Rabbi Akiva and his students. I'm not convinced that Rabbi Yehuda wore a streimel)


Tonight's class will be on Rabbi Akiva (you have seen some sneak previews of ideas I have posted on this blog)

You can sign up by clicking on this link. As always with WebYeshiva, all classes are free of charge.

See you there