THE COUGAR CHRONICLE
January 2018
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
Writing Banishes Differences
This year, Barrack’s middle school students had the wonderful opportunity to participate in a program called “Writers Matter”. The program was developed by Dr. Robert Vogel, professor emeritus at LaSalle University and a former Akiba/Barrack parent. Vogel is working on this program alongside Leslie Pugach, recently retired Akiba/Barrack teacher. This program has a mission to bring students of different religious backgrounds together. There are three schools that participate: St. Christopher’s School, The Al Aqsa Muslim School, and Barrack Hebrew Academy. The focus of the program is to overcome the divisions of religion and realize that writing is a way to do so. This program is year-long, with the schools meeting two to three times to share their writing pieces. In Writers Matter, each participant writes a piece or two in his or her
respective school. When it is time Though their initial feeling when for all three schools to come togeth- beginning the program was nerer, the participants are divided into groups to share their pieces, with each group containing students from all the different schools. What is most interesting about this program is the feedback from students from each school. Barrack students said that they wanted to partake in this program because it is a Writers Matter participants from Barrack, St. cool way to meet othChristopher’s School, and The Al Aqsa er kids from different Muslim School. religions. They feel that because they are not usually exposed to this, these vous and shy, the students discovrelationships are a main takeaway. ered that even though people have Photo Credit: JBHA
Stefanie Rose Sports Editor
Volume XXVIII Issue 2
different religions, they can be the same in many aspects, such as writing; once one got over the physical differences, there was no problem in getting to know the other students from the other schools. What they found most interesting about the writing is that while some of the pieces focused on the religious background of a student, some participants did not choose to incorporate that into their pieces. Students from The Al Aqsa Muslim School and St. Christopher’s School said very similar things. At first, they were surprised, but then they became excited to learn about others through their words on a page. Similar to the Barrack students, they wanted to meet people their age who came from different religious backgrounds. This program displays an essence of Jewish, Catholic, and Muslim communications that is not regularly seen by communities.
Friends in Faith, and in Confession, Too!
Tori Berlin Editor-at-Large
Photo Credit: Google Images
On Monday, October 9th, the The gathering began with mixed senior class visited St. Joseph’s school groups discussing the evoUniversity for a seminar with stu- lution of artwork relating the two dents from Pope John Paul II High religions, with the hope of learnSchool. Both schools participated ing more about each other and in a program called Friends in Faith, directed by the u n i v e r s i t y ’s Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations, with the purpose of learning about the two religions’ different customs of confession. Earlier in “Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time,” on St. Joseph’s the year, the two campus schools had met at Pope John Paul II High School themselves. After analyzing the to get to know each other through statues, “Synagoga and Ecclesia”, Roman Catholic-Jewish dialogue. that stood at the entrance to the During the more recent meet- Strasbourg Cathedral in France, ing, many JBHA students were the students compared them to the happy to see familiar faces again. modern version that stands in the
IN THIS ISSUE
middle of St. Joseph University’s campus, “Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time”. This updated version was visited and approved by Pope Francis during his visit to Philadelphia in 2015. Students from both schools debated whether the original artwork portrayed the Jew as inferior to the Catholic. The general consensus was that the historic “Synagoga and Ecclesia” did indeed depict a superiority of the Catholic statue to the Jew, due to many aspects including the possessions of each statue, as well as their facial expressions. In contrast, most students felt the contemporary depiction of the two religions displayed a more equal, genuine relationship. “Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time” showed two nearly identical people sharing a bench, reading their separate holy texts while simultaneously enjoying time together. The majority from both schools believed this illustration was more positive and demonstrated an ability of both re-
ligions to collaborate peacefully. After some more icebreakers, the groups quickly dove into an intense discussion of the separate traditions of confession. While the Barrack students learned about the nine steps of confession in Roman Catholic societies, the John Paul II students analyzed the translation of the Jewish confession, Al Het, as well as the meaning behind many other prayers recited on Yom Kippur. Although there were major differences in the confession practices, students felt they could relate to the other through the common theme of asking forgiveness from God. Through intellectual discussions, the students were able to learn about each other’s faiths, while simultaneously building new relationships and learning more about their own religions. In the spring, Pope John Paul II High School will return for a Model Seder at Barrack for a final gathering between the two schools.
Find out about the juniors’ Muss experience.
Update on the Rohingya persecution in Myanmar.
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