Hello parents of B'Nai Mitzvah students,

David and I were excited to welcome all 4 of our B'Nai Mitzvah students to the first day of class today. We started off with a game of finger, elbow, shake to get to know a little more about each other (It was as much for me to get to know them as anything since they already know each other).

Then we did an activity called graffiti that gave students a chance to anonymously share worries they have for the year, things they want to learn, things they like about Judaism, etc. We addressed the concerns and filed them away as things to keep in mind as the year goes on. Some major concerns were the amount of work being a lot along with school work and having to speak in front of the whole community. We told students that they are always welcome to call either of us or email us with concerns or if there is a week where things become overwhelming between school and Sunday school and that in those situations we will always work with them. We also showed them the breakdown of the projects and how much we are splitting them up, so they will never be working on more than 2 projects at a time.

We went over the schedule of projects for the year as well. I have attached a copy of that for you. As the year goes, we may have to tweak certain parts, but this will be the basic structure for the year.

After a game of 2 truths and a lie and a bagel break, we discussed the Family Roots Project. A lot of students have run into the problem of people in their family not knowing a lot of the history and we talked about how that is okay. Unfortunately most of us are in that situation, which is why it's so important that we learn what we can now before more of the history gets lost. Students are going to bring whatever they can find out about their family background next week so we can start putting our projects together. Also, students should feel free to include non-Jewish sides of the family in this project if they would like.

If students have family pictures (new or old) they can bring them in to put with their family roots project. We talked about scanning photos and the students making collages to go along with their projects.

Finally, we planned out our class website so that you don't have to get all of this information from us. In the future, David and I will have a blog with a recap from class and important information, but more importantly, the students will each have their own blog to put their reflections from each class and to post the interesting things they are discovering about their identities through our projects and historical lessons. Stay tuned for the website. It should be up and running by next week.

Next week, students need to bring whatever they are able to complete of their Family Roots packet (I stressed many times in class that it's perfectly fine if they can't get all of the answers--or in some cases, many answers at all). They were told to read the packet David handed out about the Spanish Inquisition, but they can actually wait a week on that. David will cover that section on September 23rd's class.

Have a great week,

Becca Katz and David Jordan