Nov 23 – Grade 7 – Samantha & Amy

Today the class heard a short essay about what it means for the Jewish people to be the ‘chosen ones’,  teaching love and kindness as well as doing good deeds . Following we elaborated on this that our good deeds as Jews stem from the commandments we were given. We did an activity by searching through a selection of commandments and seeing how they relate to our lives-creating a list of ones that the students do on a frequent basis, and a list of ones they can hopefully begin to do more, or will take on after becoming a Bar/Bat Mitzvah!
In the second hour, the Grade seven classes came together to learn with Geri Durbin. Geri introduced our unit on Holocaust education with a short video. Students considered the ways in which a person defines their identity, and then heard about some of the ways in which the Nazis attempted to systematically dehumanize the Jews in Europe. Further the students considered the responsibilities of the international community by learning about the famous story of the MS St. Louis which carried 908 Jewish refugees from Europe in 1939 and was denied entry in Cuba, the United States and Canada. This story really resonated with students who today are themselves wondering about our responsibilities to other refugees from other nations.
Samantha & Amy