By Amy Sessler Powell
For many years, Rachel Shwartz has been teaching students of all ages the stories from the Bible, the lessons from Masada and the history of Israel.
But last week, Shwartz and 12 other Jewish educators had a transformational experience as they stood on the sights they had always taught and saw the Jewish homeland come alive for them on a special trip to Israel for Jewish educators.
“We were standing in Jerusalem, in the City of David, and our guide started to read from the Bible. We were there. We were looking at the mountains as they looked at them. We were seeing and doing what they were doing, seeing how they got their water, the blocks to build and that all this really happened 3000 or 5000 years ago,” said Shwartz, education director at Temple Ahavat Achim in Gloucester on her first trip to Israel. “That is how everything was on that trip. It tied together everything we learned and everything we taught.”
The Teachers to Israel trip was sponsored by the Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation and fully subsidized by the Foundation along with six others donors including the Elizabeth Goldhirsh Foundation and Elizabeth Goldhirsh in memory of Wendy Goldhirsh, Arthur Epstein, John Rimer, Howard Rich, Elliot Corman and Neil Cooper. The goal was to inspire the teachers to bring Israel back into their classrooms. Each step of the way, the trip was designed with education in mind. “Our mission as Jewish educators is to instill a love of Israel in our kids,” said Deborah Coltin, executive director of the Lappin Foundation and trip leader.
Those on the trip said the experience touched them on so many levels. There were the sights, the things they saw and learned. And to deepen that experience was the bonding and forming of friendships and professional associations with each other.
More than that, teachers said the trip gave them a passion for Israel that can only be experienced in the first person. “Students are symbiotic with their teachers and they absorb our enthusiasm or our lack thereof. Now, I have this passion and will be able to pass it on.” said Beverly Shapiro, a teacher at Congregation Ahavas Achim in Newburyport. “Before we were giving information in the second person and now we will be able to give it from the first person, to put connections to the portions in our history, the Torah, to see them to touch them.”
The experiences during Shabbat in Jerusalem described the spirituality, the hospitality and the joy of the Jewish homeland. To see the country completely shut down, with no stores or car, contrasts with the U.S. where it is more difficult to observe Shabbat. Then they embarked on what turned out to be an incredible journey to the Kotel. They stopped to light candles and sing the Kabbalat Shabbat prayers. As the teachers sang, people came out their houses to watch them. “We were so moved to be together in a circle singing Shabbat songs and people saw that and joined us along the periphery and you could tell how moved they were,” said Wendy Roizen, a teacher from Temple Beth Shalom in Peabody. “One woman actually had tears flowing.”
As they got closer to the Wall, they joined in prayer with another group of Americans who it turned out were celebrating a Bat-Mitzvah. They joined in her celebration, singing and dancing until the rabbi told the young girl, “You have family wherever you go.”
Later that night at a restaurant, the groups started singing Shabbat songs prompting other tables to join in. “Where else can you sit in a restaurant, start to sing and have everyone else join in,” said Marci Yellin of Congregation Shirat Hayam Preschool in Swampscott. “Everyone is the same. We are the majority, not the minority like we are here.”
“It turned into a table pounding, who can sing the loudest thing, but they were from France,” said Lauren Goldman, teacher at Temple B’nai Abraham in Beverly. “We did not even speak the same native tongue, but we could communicate because we were Jews.”
The trip took them to many points in Israel including the tunnels under the Kotel, the Negev, the Dead Sea, an Ethopian Youth Center, Masada and many others. Some sights were personal. On Shabbat, Rachel Jacobson, Dina Davidyan and Lauren Goldman went in search of Rachel’s childhood apartment in Baca. “We stood in the backyard and instead of asking us to get off their property, the people who lived there now invited us in and Rachel actually got to go into the apartment where she grew up,” said Goldman.
At the end of each day, as the group reflected and brainstormed, they would say it has been the best day. “Everyday we’d say that was the best day, but it really was,” said Roizen. During these end of the day discussions, the teachers talked about bringing the day’s education back to their students. Each teacher will complete a post-trip project that will be available as a resource to all the teachers in the community.
Cheryl Makhluf, a teacher at the JCC in Peabody, brought an eight-inch Kermit the Frog and photographed him. She teaches three-year-olds and wanted to find a way for them to relate. For her post-trip project, she plans to make a book about Kermit going to Israel “so they see that Israel is a fun and interesting place.”
Marci Yellin and Rachel Jacobson will be leading family services together during the High Holidays at Congregation Shirat Hayam. “We always like to incorporate stories, but now we were in Israel together and we can put the energy of the trip into it. This gives you the excitement to get back into the classroom and bring Israel to the students.”
While each person on the trip can point to certain highlights and special places, many also agreed that what was most special about the trip was the way they shared it. “A highlight was the passion the people I was with have for what they teach and want to teach,” said Yellin. “We were happy to share ideas with each other to make teaching better, to give it more. This was such a wonderful group.”
The full group included teachers Ann Cohen, Coltin, Davidyan, Judy Eidelman, Goldman, Jacobson, Seth Landau, Makhluf, Phyllis Osher, Wendy Roizen, Shapiro, Shwartz, and Yellin. They represent more than 12 schools and tutor many students individually from all over.
Landau, a bar-mitzvah tutor all over the North Shore and a teacher at Ahavat Achim in Gloucester, went on the trip to experience what he teaches and to better understand the importance of a Bar-Mitzvah and to be able to convey that to his students. “We became the students, but we are also the teachers. There was tremendous give and take on this trip and something you would not be able to get here.”
Eidelman, a teacher at Temple Emanu-El in Marblehead, said some of her family members tried to discourage her from going. “They told me not to go, that we didn’t have family in Israel. But I do have family in Israel. It is a family feeling, a connection when you are there.”