Herzl/RMHA has developed a new model for promoting relationships between our students and Israel. It is really a simple idea: our 10th grade lives for 6 weeks in the Environmental High School on Midreshet Ben Gurion. While their Israeli peers are in classes, our students have ulpan, or if their Hebrew is adequate, they attend regular high school classes. After classes our students are folded into the high school extracurricular activities and spend their free time with Israeli peers.
You can imagine the dramatic effect of this program on Hebrew language improvement. Equally profound are the deep and enduring relationships that result. The isolated, beautiful setting conduces to socializing and excursions into the desert for entertainment.
Students from the first two cadres to go on the program are still in regular contact with their Israeli friends via email, Facebook, instant messaging and telephone. Our students have visited with their Israeli friends and the Israelis have visited here. We are eager to discover what happens to the relationships when the Israelis go off to the army and our students go to university.
The students’ quantum leap in Hebrew language skills allows us to offer a course in which the language of instruction is Hebrew. This is the second year of such a course: Critical Questions Facing Israel. There is strong interest on account of both the content and the fact that it gives students another forum in which to speak Hebrew. If only we had a geometry teacher who spoke Hebrew!
The most recent cadre returned at the end of December and is still high from the program. No one can better express their relationship with Israel and Israelis than the students themselves. Here are some excerpts (from our lowest Hebrew section); I have translated from the Hebrew.
Mia writes:
I met Israeli kids. I now have many Israeli friends and I want to see them when I return to Israel…I love going to my school but I am very homesick (מתגעגעת) for Israel because I love the land and the people (אנשים).
Rivka writes:
When I return to Israel I want to see my friends from the high school on Midreshet Sde Boker (another name for Midreshet Ben Gurion). I want to see new things. I feel good in Israel.
Although the Hebrew might not be sophisticated, the emotions are crystal clear: the beginning of a long-term relationship with Israelis and Israel. ♦
Rabbi Harry Sinoff is the Director of Judaic Studies at Herzl/RMHA in Denver, Colorado. He can be reached at hsinoff@dcje.org.
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