Monday April 9, 2018 – Grade 7

 

Lessons in Remembrance, Lessons in Inclusion

I vividly recall – years ago as a teenage volunteer worker on an Israeli kibbutz – my ‘kibbutz mother’ leaning down to me as I sat in her living room, and saying in the firmest of voices, ‘we must never forget.’   Though she had made aliyah to the Jewish homeland years prior to the Holocaust, she knew well what had come to pass in Europe during that most-catastrophic of eras.

Last night [April 9], the Grade Seven students at Holy Blossom Temple undertook lessons in remembrance – speaking about, listening to one another, and pausing to reflect on the Shoah – Nazi Germany’s murder of six million Jews from 1939 through 1945.   Students engaged these activities in anticipation of Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Memorial Day on Thursday April 12, and in preparation for our field trip to the Holocaust Museum on Bathurst Street the evening of Monday April 23.

As well, both Grade Six and Seven students began preparations for a joint learning experience on Monday April 16, the focus of which will be Jewish approaches to those with physical, emotional and intellectual challenges.

Overall, last night’s classes provided students with lessons regarding inclusion and in remembrance;  lessons that – without doubt – will serve to strengthen them on their journeys toward adulthood.

Sh’vua tov – a week of health and gladness to all.