The Little Shofar - Spring/Aviv 2010/5770

The Little Shofar Spring/Aviv 2010/5770 Jewish Family Congregation Early Childhood Center Newsletter This Passover was very different for me and my family. For the first time, instead of having my son visit me for a Seder at my house, as we always had, our whole family converged to make a Seder at his new home in Columbus, Ohio. As simple and wonderful as it may seem that we all traveled for Passover to celebrate together, it took a lot of Seders with the same songs, food and stories to produce this Seder. Every year since my children were born, they knew Passover brought the family together in celebration. For many years my husband and I worked to forge a Jewish identity and religious value system in our children, and we feel blessed they have embraced our Jewish traditions. You are just beginning to create a Jewish legacy for your children. Each family gathering and shared Jewish ritual at your home strengthens your childâ€&#x;s Jewish connection.

The ECC is extremely proud to be able to help you create this Jewish identity. Leading up to Passover the teachers gave your children the background to understand the Passover holiday through stories, songs, cooking and the creation of meaningful Seder items such as matzoh covers and wine glasses. The children explored the holiday of Passover through all of their senses, especially when discovering how to make matzoh during the visit by the Matzoh Bakery from the Chabad of Westchester. Each child created his or her own piece of matzoh by patting, rolling and making the perforations with a fork. Yet the highlight of our studies was the childrenâ€&#x;s Passover celebration we shared with you. I hope that after seeing what your child was learning you were able to incorporate his or her knowledge into participation at your own Seder and begin traditions which will be with your family for many years to come.

The Jewish education that you have provided your children with was very evident during the ECC Food Drive.

This tzedakah project was spearheaded by Linda Lederman and Meredith Rudin as part of the Early Childhood Committee. Everyone at the ECC participated in making this mitzvah a huge success. Over 272 pounds of food were collected and donated to the

ECC Little Shofar

Spring/Aviv 2010 / 5770 Community Center of Northern Westchester. This experience allowed your children to learn how important it is to help others by watching and helping you give tzedakah. The next ECC tzedakah project will be a clothing drive for new and lightly used children‟s clothing during the week of April 19 th. The ECC looks forward to your continued participation and to what your children will learn about caring for others from participating with you.

With Passover comes spring weather and exciting school trips. We look forward to visiting the Maritime Aquarium on April 27 th with the Blue and Yellow Rooms to learn about aquatic animals and to extend our knowledge through our class studies of water and sea life. In addition, on May 26 th the whole school will be visiting Muscoot Farm to learn about farm operation, the animals that live there and to enjoy the beautiful farm grounds. Oh yes, there is one more trip for the Blue and Yellow Rooms but it is for the children only. On April 20 th the teachers and children are going to celebrate Yom Ha-atzmaut, or Israel‟s Independence Day, with a trip to Israel. Don‟t worry, although Israel is far away, through the magic of imagination, we should make it back in time for lunch.

Wishing you a happy spring and all the sunny days and budding flowers that come with it.

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Spring/Aviv 2010 / 5770 FROM THE RABBI’S DESK

There are two occasions on the Jewish calendar, coming very soon: Yom HaShoah, and Yom HaAtzma-ut. These are Holocaust Memorial Day and Israel Independence Day, respectively. Obviously, these two events have been added to our calendar of religious observances quite recently.

Holocaust Memorial Day joins Tisha B‟Av as a sad and sombre observance in Jewish tradition; the latter marks the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, not once but twice on the same date, the ninth day of the month of Av, first in 586 BCE and then in 70 CE. From the vantage point of 2010, it is not easy to understand the impact of that loss, but it is fair to say that Judaism has never been the same since the event nearly 2000 years ago. And it is possible that, had Judaism remained temple-centred and all about animal sacrifice, it would not exist at all today. So those of us who rejoice in the vitality of Judaism today may not feel inclined to mourn on the ninth day of Av (which coincides with July 20, this year).

But there can be no escaping the pain and significance of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. We mourn the deaths of six million Jews, including one and a half million children. We mourn the disappearance of Jewish life in Europe, the destruction of the synagogues, the libraries, the schools and academies, along with the people and their homes and businesses. These horrific events are not even 70 years past, so they are still very fresh in our consciousness.

We who teach young people are very aware of the fact that we must tread very gently when marking this occasion. We do not want to frighten little children, or make them unduly suspicious of others. We don‟t want them to be afraid to be proudly Jewish. So we teach very little about the occasion to our youngest students, your children in the ECC. In fact, we do very little with it in the primary grades in our Religious School. We talk about a time when Jews were not treated well, and speak about the day as one of sadness. We try to show by our tone rather than by any specific details that this occasion is serious and not a celebration. More than one youngster has noted that Yom Kippur is also not a celebration, and we appreciate the connection.

We do teach about the Holocaust to our 6th graders, and our Religious School takes them, as a class, to tour the Holocaust Museum in Battery Park; this year we introduced a segment on the Holocaust into our 7th grade curriculum, as well.

But the other occasion coming soon is treated with much fanfare at JFC: the birthday of the State of Israel. Your child will probably make a flag like Israel‟s, and there will be a parade around the building for flag-waving. In our Religious School, we will sing HaTikva, Israel‟s national anthem, and the kids will have a birthday cake featuring that flag. We make a point of singing Happy Birthday to Israel, and our ECC kids take an imaginary trip to Israel. What exactly they understand from all of this is not clear, but we are certain that our enthusiasm and joy is communicated, so that, as these children grow up and come to understand Israel‟s meaning to the Jewish people, they will already associate it with happiness.

Because these two occasions are not mandated in the Torah, we (and many other congregations) feel free to observe them at the Shabbat service closest to the actual date. This year, we will mark Yom HaShoah on April 16, and Yom Ha-Atzma-ut on April 23. Because Yom HaShoah falls on Sunday, April 11 this year, we will mark it at the Religious School, but probably not much, if at all, in the ECC. But you can count on much celebration of Israel‟s birthday on Tuesday, April 20, and throughout that week as well.

When there is something to celebrate, we take full advantage of that!

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Spring/Aviv 2010 / 5770 News from the Green Room Once again Pizza Day was a big hit in the Green Room. Our classroom was transformed into “Puppos Pizza Restaurant” (chosen by the kids) and was a welcome change for the children. They pretended they were ordering pizzas from the menus, ringing up their friends‟ orders on the cash register and making their own edible pizzas. The children spread the sauce, tore the cheese slices and watched how quickly the cheese melted. A few days later we removed the pizzas and all bread products from our play kitchen in anticipation of Passover.

The Green Room is SO glad to welcome spring and Passover into our classroom and into the muddy outdoors (hopefully no more snow.) We had fun learning and practicing our Passover songs, making Passover keepsakes for our families‟ seders and especially performing our Passover story at the celebration. By now you probably have heard 200 choruses of “Dayenu.” The song highlight of course was “Ten Little Matzoh Balls.” Thank you all for sharing this special Passover celebration with us and the children.

Please check your child‟s box to make sure there is an extra set of seasonal clothes. We hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather and had a relaxing Passover break.

B‟Shalom Dinah and Jodi

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Spring/Aviv 2010 / 5770

P U P P O S Pizza Restaurant

Passover MATZAH A N

DAYENU

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Spring/Aviv 2010 / 5770 News from the Blue Room LEARNING IS MORE THAN A, B, C‟S While your children are at school, they are learning much more than their A, B, C„s. They have become aware of, and have learned the true meaning of, Tzedakah.

A few weeks ago, the ECC parents got together to initiate a food drive for the Community Center of Northern Westchester. The parents set up boxes and colorful signs for food donations to be brought in by the children in order to contribute to this worthy cause.

We sat with the children at circle time and asked them, “What would it be like to open your cupboards at home to find that there was no food there? How would you feel?” We received amazing answers that reflected their sensitivity as well as an understanding of what it means to “have less.” The Blue Room was very excited to help other, less fortunate people, and could not wait to bring in their donations. They talked about what they liked to eat and what they would bring for others.

The concept of Tzedakah incorporates the values of justice and doing the right thing, which ultimately results in caring, considerate, and empathetic children.

These lessons are practiced on a daily basis in the classroom. We follow through by learning to share, wait our turn, ask how someone is feeling, saying I‟m sorry, and of course the most obvious, contributing money on Shabbat to our class Tzedakah box.

These are important life lessons that your children have learned in the Blue Room, and they will stay with them throughout their lives.

Todah Rabah, Ellen & Laura

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Matzah, Matzah, Man

LOOK AT THE GREAT PUZZLE WE MADE ALL BY OURSELVES!

OUR FAVORITE SONG!!

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ECC Little Shofar

Spring/Aviv 2010 / 5770 News from The Yellow Room Spring is here! The Yellow room was very busy during February and March. We made costumes for Purim while learning about the Purim story, and we had a lot of fun acting out the story. We also made Matzoh covers, Elijah Cups and Seder plates to decorate our Passover tables. The children worked very hard on these, and we hope that everyone had a chance to use them. We all enjoyed the visit from the Matzoh Man. The trip to the Katonah Museum to see the puppet exhibit was wonderful. In our classroom, the children built a puppet theatre out of blocks. We loved it so much we kept it up for three days! We made sock puppets and paper bag puppets and put on shows in our theater.

The Nature of Things came again to visit and brought more interesting animals for us to learn about. Finding out about animals and science is always exciting for the children. The science table has been an area of great interest. We are trying to see what floats and what sinks. Each day we have different items to try. As we began to learn about spring and planting, we were excited to see the bulbs that we had planted outside in the circle were already starting to come up.

We are going to start growing plants for our garden this month and will transplant them in May. The children have been hard at work cutting, writing, drawing and playing. The kitchen area is usually very busy with children making many delicious dishes for us to try. There is always something under construction in our room, and wonderful new things are happening every day.

Thank you for all your help in making our days so productive.

Debra and Alison

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First-Year Dues For Young Families Lowered by 50% Thinking of joining JFC? If your oldest child is in Kindergarten in 2009/10 or younger, first-year JFC dues are now only half the annual dues amount!

And, if your children are (or will be) enrolled in the Jewish Family Congregation Early Childhood Center, your JFC membership entitles you to a

JFC Congregant Discount on tuition!

For more information or to join JFC, call (914) 763-3028 Or visit us on-line at: www.jewishfamilycongregation.org You’ll feel at home when you’re part of our family…

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ECC moms having a great time at a Cooking Class held by Nicole Rose

Now Registering for Fall 2010

Limited Spaces Available for 2’s, 3’s and 4’s Don’t let your child miss out All registration forms are available on our website: www.jewishfamilycongregation.org Click on Education, then ECC

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