Path to Confirmation

Dear parents and teens of the Path to Confirmation class:

Yesterday during CJL we made matzah pizza (for ourselves) and made and served matzah toffee “crack” for the whole CJL. Both turned out great. My goal in doing this was to show the teens that they could make simple and delicious food for themselves and their families during Passover. Hopefully they will show off their skills to you during the holiday.

After making the food, we went upstairs to work on our final projects on modern Israel. I had assigned these projects to the teens with the hope that they could learn something new about Israel without being influenced by my biases. Coby Rinke presented last night about the Israeli elections and the Knesset, and we discussed how their parliamentary system differs from ours, and what compromises have to be made between the parties to form coalitions and get more power in the Knesset. Yay for Coby!!!!

However, most of the other students did not seem very enthused about working on projects--and I have no desire to make them miserable for the duration of the school year!--but they are curious about the history of the conflict with the Palestinians. I only had time to give them a short “elevator” version of the conflict, but we will continue this discussion when we return on April 24. (no class next week!)

As you can imagine, many different journalists, writers, and podcasters have a lot to say on the subject of Israel, the Palestinians, BDS, etc. I already sent you this list of sources in a previous letter, but I’ve included it below just in case you missed it the first time. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a start.

Book: Catch 67, by Micah Goodman (about the war of 1967 and its aftermath)

Podcasts:

Intractable (specifically about the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but also modern Israeli history),

Fault Lines (civil and respectful discourse from both left and right),

The Promised Podcast (caveat: occasional explicit language, but humorous and very intelligent discourse about current events/issues by liberal American expats living in Israel),

Tel-Aviv Review (Israeli and Jewish topics)

The Branch (coexistence between Jews and Arabs)

I have heard that when teens are sheltered from negative news about Israel, then exposed to it suddenly, it can lead them to reject their Jewish communities, thinking that they were fed a bunch of lies about Israel while in Hebrew school. As I’ve said before, my hope is that when your teens leave for camp or college, they will have had the chance to form their own opinions--left, right, or center--and they will have their own answer for activists on both sides.

And now for something completely fun and scientific, please take a look at this link https://www.theicenter.org/compilation/spaceIL

And this one: https://www.theicenter.org/resource/spaceil-video

The Israeli space probe Breisheet is supposed to land on the moon today around 3-4pm. This is very exciting, as Israel will be only the fourth country to land a probe on the moon, and the first to land a privately funded one. These links include games and video links so that you can see interviews with the scientists, look at the educational resources, and watch the landing in real time. Enjoy!

Happy Pesach,

Morah Judy