Class!

On Sunday we began classes in a very confusing block schedule schedule. I've never had a block schedule before, but even if I had I don't think it could be this confusing. Shevet Hebrew classes are from 8:30 to 10:30 every other day Sunday through Thursday and 10:30 to 12:30 every other every other day. If that made sense without you thinking too hard then there's something wrong with you. Sunday (so weird to have class on Sunday and not Friday!), Tuesday, Thursday we have Hebrew first; Monday and Wednesday, second. Hebrew is taught, strangely, entirely in Hebrew, which is a concept that none of the French, Spanish, or German teachers at LPHS managed to use. Well obviously they wouldn't have been teaching in Hebrew but you get my point.

Orit teaches in much the same way I'm used to because her method is very similar to Rivka's. We read a story and begin studying the vocabulary in the text. Then there's always a grammar lesson (for example, expections to plurals and adjective conjugation, etc.) Then, on a larger scale, two or three stories and maybe a song are strung together with a thematic intent. Our first unit was about relationships. We read "לשבור את החזיר" (Breaking the Pig) by Etgar Keret, which is about a seemingly-friendless boy with a father who wants to teach a lesson about valuing money and so makes the kid save a shekel a day from drinking bad hot chocolate--which the kid hates. He can only get a Bart Simpson doll when the pig makes no noise when shaken. But the pig remains the only smile in the boy's life and when he's finally full the boy does not want his father to smash his friend with a hammer. We wrote the end of the story ourselves, then read the author's solution to saving the pig and not getting in trouble with the father.

We moved on to the song "באה אליכם" ("Coming to You"), another piece about relations between child and son. We glean vocab and take away conjugation lessons from the song before listening to it. There was a third piece, a great rhyimg story in which a series of animals interview to be the fifth tenant in a house. Several have ligitimate reasons for not wanting to join even though they like the place: the nightengale can't stand the noise the squirrel makes; the rabbit thinks that the cookoo bird's abandoned and dispersed children will be a bad influence on her multitudes; the ant won't live in a place with a fat lazy chicken on the first floor. All of them politely decline the invitation to live in the building. But the pig, "whitest of the white since the day of creation," who doesn't want to live with a black cat is told to leave because the rest of the tenants don't want him there. Then we read the ultimate relationship story: "העץ הנדיב" (The Giving Tree). It's something I don't realize until I read it, but it really is one of my favorite books ever. I understand something new each time I read it (and something more when I hear it read to me). I have a few people in mind to whom I want to read that seemingly simple story.

So, Abby, what movie might fit into this theme of relationships? We watched "כנפיים שבורות" ("Broken Wings") this morning, which is something that can work in a two-hour class. It's the one thing I won't analyze, but that's only because it's a movie and I can't deal with it. It was pretty good but unfortunately that's we way I describe a lot of them. But no, I did get the point I think.

I think the best other class I'm taking is going to be "Jerusalem through the Jewish Historical Perspective". We learn about Jerusalem on Tuesday then go on a three-hour siyur (field trip, basically) on Sunday afternoon. It's a pretty good deal with the only real work being short commentaries on the trips we've taken. I'll probably post those on here after I write them. The first trip, which we'll be taking this Sunday, is to Hezekiah's Tunnel. I made the mistake of not bringing my camera the last time I was there, so I think I will this weekend.

I also have a Midrash class, starting with the Akedah then moving to Adam and Eve and then sort of all around I think, but not so sure. The History of Zionism class is a good fit for me because Akiba's weak point always has been teaching Jewish history. For this class we visited the Herzl Museum on Har Herzl. It was cheesier than last time but other than that not much else was different. The point was still the same and the scoffing reactions of the group were the same at the same places in the presentation. It's a little condescending of a presentation but all of these new-style media museums are like that, I think. I'm much more a fan of the museums containing racks of artifacts and boxes and display cases than the TV-style ones.

The final class, the one I want to change out of, is the History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict class. Why do I want to switch? Two reasons. The first is that, as a history class, it shouldn't be taught by someone with an ease of inserting bias into his lessons. We're a Jewish Zionist group being taught a Zionist subject by a Zionist teacher on a course in Israel. I have a hard time seeing--after only one class, even--that it will give equal time to the "histories" of both sides of this conflict. That's the ideological reason. The practical reason I want to switch classes is that I can take this sort of history class anywhere, especially at Brandeis. What I can't do is take a class like Lost Jewish Communities because there's no way to visit all these old communities when I'm sitting in Waltham. So I'm hoping to be able to switch into that class before too much time has gone by.

Now I've got to go read some stuff and work out Shabbos and Rosh Hashanah plans. Update in a few. And bollocks on losing my sunglasses dancing at the Kotel last Erev Shabbos. The Brits are teaching us some English.