Hi everyone! we wanted to share with you what we did this past month!
First of all, we celebrated Hanukkah, we saw how is it like to celebrate this holiday in Pittsburgh’s Jewish community: the cars with the Menorah on top of them, the different but beautiful melodies for Hanukkah prayers and the fun fact that Hanukkah is a holiday of Hanukkah gifts! That was definitely fascinating to see and be part of. Our activities for Hanukkah were mainly about “Spreading the light” and about how can we do good and by that to spread our light.
Furthermore, in the rest of the month we did activities with CDS and JJEP kids about “Shvil Israel” which is Israel’s National Trail. We talked about how much this trail is unique because of all the different landscapes that you can see, how it zigzags all over Israel, about it’s special mark and we played a fun memory game to explore more about it! We also did an activity about the “Festigal” which is an enormous children’s musical that happens once a year in Hanukkah! We saw parts of the festigals throughout the years, and we talked about the differences between the years.
At J-Line we lead a discussion about Israeli customs and about the differences and the similarities between the Israeli and American customs. We talked about the sirens that are being sounded all over Israel in memorial days, about the clapping when Israelis land from a flight in Israel, about the black coffee “Kaffe Shachor” and the fact that each Israeli has his own creative way to make the best coffee and much more other customs.
Also we were at Adat Shalom Congregation in Fox Chapel where we discussed with the teens about the Israeli teen life and the steps that Israeli teens go through: youth movements, high school, drafting in to the army and then college. We answered a lot of questions that the teens asked and it was tons of fun!
In addition we met the delegation from Israel of Partnership2Gether and we explained to them what we are doing here and our activities that we have done so far. It was a lot of fun feeling the Israeli vibes !
Looking forward to January and having a wonderful winter break!
Your Shinshinim,
Raz & Hadar