Hanukah of Lights is Religious and Sunday School project, open to all students, their families and teaching staff members.
It consist of collection of photographs that will be taken during Hanukah celebrations at home. For the moment, I will hold on to the details on the instructions and specifications that were sent out home for this project.
I will be posint more as we go along.
The following picture is the main source for all of pictures in the presentation shown in this blog.
For this presentation I used a beta visual application called VUVOX. The beautiful song played in this presentation is called Ozi, a Yemenite folksong that it is masterly performed by The Zamir Chorale of Boston from the recording: Lights: Music for Chanukah. Their Website is http://www.zamir.org/
Here are the lyrics of this beautiful version of Psalm 118 ( part of the Hallel said during Hanukah).
In my opinion, this is one of the best Hanukah music and story programs ever put together. The music is performed by the world famous vocal sextet The Westen Wind Vocal Ensemble. Their eclectic CD (It includes unique Hanukah songs in Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino) came to light in 2005.
The uniqueness and quality of the melodies and stories on this program have not been surpased yet. If you think this project can not get any better, just add Leonard Nimoy to the equation.
This 58 min podcast has been published at The Forum Network, a public media service from PBS and NPR.
If you work in Jewish education, you probably will agree with me when I say that there is never enough time to do everything you plan to do with your students. The Jewish calendar seems to get shorter and shorter every year.
There are a lots of challenges when helping students to create any computer or digital activity/project from start to finish. At our Religious and Sunday School, the activities and projects I plan with students (grades K-8) must be planned to the minute. Most of the projects are done on a "one time" visit (60 minutes long max), so logistics can get quite complicated, specially when you want to showcase student's work on the web and share it with parents ASAP.
Thinking of that, I've decided to start posting links to easy and quick online activities related to Jewish education. I will start with Hanukah (Channukah, Chanukah, Januca, Januka, etc.) since is already around the corner.
Some of the links are in Hebrew only, but if you need further help in finding something similar in english, I will be happy to try to help you. I can be found on Twitter as: Jewlearnit
Make sure that you have installed Flash 10 plug in to access these activities.
Lesson time: 60 minutes
Time creating the slideshow: 30 minutes
I decided to try a new slideshow tool called PhotoPeach and I was glad I did. In three simple steps you create a beautiful slideshow
such as the one I am showing above. PhotoPeach allows fast embeding and you can share your work through e-mail, twitter or post in a blog, facebook, and myspace.
For this slideshow, students made beautiful images using Pixie 2. This is a very cool and easy software to use to create art and images. Believe it or not, this was the first time that the 1st grade students use Pixie.
For this lesson, I first made a general review on Jewish symbols. Then I made a very quick overview of how to use the software and last, I asked the students to make an artistic creation on their favorite Jewish Symbols.
PhotoPeach also allows you to create a simple quiz. At the end of this slideshow, I made a very basic quiz with the help of beautiful pictures I found at PhotoSearch (Royalty Free). In this way, parents can enjoy not only reviewing their kid's work but also helping them reinforce what they have learned in class that day!
Charter for Compassion was created by TED Prize winner Karen Armstrong. It launched on Nov 12.
This is a film created by thousands of people around the world. Hopefully it will be a new dialog between the major religions and between religious and nonreligious people. http://charterforcompassion.org/
Very interesting how I learned about this movie. I was reading a post on people's magazine online (yeah, I do read this kind of stuff!) about the singer Seal. He explains how his kids keep him connected to God (click on the world Seal to link you to a video of this) and how he has chosen over the years to see God in people.
It turns out that he is not the only celebrity that will be sharing their own thoughts on God. Filmaker Peter Rodgers has taken upon the monumental task of documenting the views on God from a variety of public: from multi-etnic and multicultural people to famous celebrities, showcased on a visually stunning and provocatived documentary named Oh My God.
- "My goal was to find out what this entity that goes by the name of God means to people." -Peter says.
I visited the movie's website and it looks very promising. I am looking forward in watching this one.
The original premier of Oh My God was in Jerusalem on last July. Unfortunatelly for us in Jacksonville, Fl there is not screening planned for here just yet. It will be coming to theathers nationwide on Nov 13
I do not think there is a more appropiated day to speak about tolerance other than today, specially after watching yesterday on the news, a video of the most recent Neo-Nazi rally that took place in Riverside, Ca (Intentionally, I will not link my blog to any place related to it).
So I decided to spread the word of Tolerance among my different classes today. I was very surprised to learn how little our children know about the meaning of the word Tolerance. It is evident that most students understand the word tolerant only in conection with the Holocaust, but it is still somehow difficult to identify a more general meaning.
However, I feel we were off to a great start.
Two important questions were brought up during our talk on Tolerance: how can you be tolerant with someone who is not tolerant to you? and how can you forgive someone who had comited any hate crime against you, your family and or your community.
We decided to take these questions home and bring up possible answers on our next classs. We are on a mission!
On my way to finding such answers, I came across a very special educational initiative in Israel called Neve Shalom Wahat-el Salam
founded by Jewish and Arabs Israeli citizens to promote peace, unity and tolerance.
Neve Shalom Wahat-el Salam is a germinator of seeds of love. They are awared that they may not be able to watch and enjoy the fruit from the seeds they are planting, but are hopefull that perhaps their children will.
My search for anwsers continues....
Watch a video of the Neve Shalom Wahat -el Salam vill
"I love life. I shouldn't be here. By all rights I should have died. My whole life was a miracle. I feel it is my duty to give something back. You have got to give of yourself --not money but the essence of yourself, that is what makes life meaningful".
Henry Landwirth
I first learned about this extraordinary heroe on one school's Mitzvah (Good deed) trip to "DIGNITY U WEAR", a Jacksonville, Fl based company and warehouse, who in partnership with important retailers and manufacturers provides "cost free" clothing to people in need nationwide.
Donners and volunteers are the main force behind this monumental task. But the main motor behind it is Mr. Henry Landwirth.
He learned first hand how it feels to be stripped of dignity and anything important and basic thing in life: He is a Holocaust survivor who like many other survivors, suffered the imaginable: at age 13 he saw his mother begging for food at a Nazi concentration camp. This was the last time he saw her. After surviving several killing attempts by German officers, he realized one day that he is still alive.
His survival story is as heartbreaking as it is inspiring. Years later, after immigrating to the USA he made a vow in making a difference in people's life. “I know what it means not to have clothes – to be stripped of dignity and to give up all hope." This is one of the reasons why in 2000 he founded the non profit "DIGNITY U WEAR" organization. This company has provided:
Brand new clothing is distributed through a network nonprofit social service agencies, schools and other organizations throughout the United States:
5.7 million pieces of brand new clothing■valued at $101 million
Has reached over 390,000 children and families in need
Henri's sparkle of life continues to touch people in so many different ways. He has founded other important and charity organization such as: Give Kids the World Foundation and Hate Hurts.
You can learn about Henry Landwirth's inspiring life in his book: Gift of Life
MAKE A DIFFERENCE...One Jacket at a Time!
Dignity U Wear has a great opportunity to help 1,200 little boys look great in these beautiful sport coats. For $5 you can help us obtain and deliver to a child a brand new jacket tagged at $79.50.
One of our best donor friends in the apparel industry has contacted us about these jackets (sizes from toddler to 7) and asked if we wanted to purchase them. These are not seconds. They are absolutely perfect. For business reasons, they cannot be given away, but they can be purchased so cheaply we cannot say “no.
They are holding them for us for the next three weeks so we can raise the funds. Will you help us get them to children who otherwise would not have such beautiful, new clothing?
We need to receive tax deductable donations for 1,200 coats totaling $6,000. Please feel free to donate two or ten or 100! We will do the rest!
Thank you!!!
You can make your donation through our Website
You can also send a check to:
Dignity U Wear
136 North Myrtle Avenue
Jacksonville, Florida 32204
Attn: One Jacket at a Time
Give kids the World
Hate hurts: A lesson in Tolerance and Forgiveness.
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