The Charlotte Jewish News - February 2015 - Page 19
Schools
Seize the Day School
One Man Struggle with Sending His Daughter to Day School
By Ken Gordon
A few years ago, my then-boss,
a yarmulked iiber-Jew named
Yossi Abramowitz, asked if I
planned to send my kids to day
sehool.
I don’t remember my response,
but I ean tell you what I thought:
“Dude, are you kidding?” I was a
seeular pubbe-sehool kid, my wife
was a seeular publie-sehool kid,
and my ehildren, when they were
old enough, would follow peda-
gogieal suit. We didn’t pay those
insanely super-high Newton, MA,
taxes for nothing.
Well, it’s the winter of 2009,
and my six-year-old little daughter
Shoshi is in her seeond year
at Solomon Seheehter Day Sehool
of Greater Boston.
How in the name of Cynthia
Oziek did this happen?
Friends of ours were looking at
Seheehter for their ehild, and Lisa
was intrigued. After some hus-
band-and-wife baek-and-forth, I
agreed to go with her and meet the
friendly people at the sehool (it’s
the kind of plaee where every
morning the kids are greeted with
a eheery “Boker tov!”). In the end,
we deeided to give Sheeky - I
sometimes eall the sehool
“Sheeky” or “Solly,” beeause
these terms are, to my ears,
more heimish than “Seheehter” -
a shot. Plus it’s the kind of plaee
that would make anti-Semites
erazy if they saw it. I love that.
And you know what? Jewish
kindergarten was eute. The songs
were eute. The holiday eelebra-
tions were eute. The Israeli dane-
ing, the never-ending stream of
Jewish-themed art projeets, even
Shlomo the Bunny, a hand puppet
who dramatized the kids’ day-to-
day troubles: all of this was eute
as a bright Jewish button.
Then eame our year-end par-
ent-teaeher eonferenee.
Shoshi’s teaeher, Susan, told us
that, starting in first grade, half the
sehool day would be in Hebrew.
Half the day. This wasn’t a total
surprise -1 knew that later on the
kids did bilingual days, but I
hadn’t, until that meeting, realized
it started in first grade. My little
girl would be living in a language
I don’t really know (more on this
later), and it now seemed not just
a seeond language, but a religious
one. As literary eritie George
Steiner reeently wrote, “Hebrew is
a ealling by, a summons from, an
address to God,” whieh, in this
eontext, freaked me out a bit.
Another freak-out moment
eame via Solly’s website. “Eaeh
week the parashah (Torah portion)
is diseussed in English, foeusing
on major themes and making them
relevant to first graders,” it re
ported. “Students are exposed to
one verse from eaeh parashah in
Biblieal Hebrew, and take-home
family aetivities eonneeted to one
idea from eaeh parashah.”
To whieh I eould only say, “No
hablo ‘parashah.’”
My ehildhood home was a
more-or-less Torah-free zone. Yes,
my brother and I were bar mitzva-
hed via the tape-reeorder-and-
transliteration method, and we
eaeh reeeived a volume of Penta-
teueh from our pals in the temple
brotherhood, but we never inves
tigated a single one of the Five
Books of Moses. I look at the en
thusiasm and eare with whieh
Shoshi is taught, and am annoyed
at what a lousy Jewish edueation
I had. I ean reeognize the Hebrew
letters, and know by heart the
melodies of the most popular He
brew prayers - nothing else. Re
ally, it’s absurd. I remember my
old Hebrew Sehool teaeher, an un
fortunately dandruffed fellow
named Mr. Flum, and wonder,
“What in the world were you
thinking?” (On the other hand.
I’m sure Mr. Flum was severely
underpaid and had to work with a
buneh of less-than-eommitted,
mostly annoying kids. He was
probably thinking, “What in the
world am I doing here?”)
Mueh of my Jewish edueation
has been pieked up in my 30s, on
the fly, as the editor of
JBooks.eom, the website about
Jewish books. This eontrasts
strongly with Shosh, who reeently
mentioned something about Yom
Hashoah, Holoeaust Remem-
branee Day, a holiday I hadn’t
heard of until 2004.
“What do you know about Yom
Hashoah?” I asked, surprised that
they teaeh Kindergarten kids
about this.
“I don’t want to say beeause I’ll
start erying.”
For kids at Solly, religion is a
eentral part of sehool life; but this
isn’t what’s going down at the
ole Gordon bayit. We belong to
no temple, though we do hit the
odd Tot Shabbat serviee. When
we do Shabbat dinner, the girl
manieally runs around, “Shoshi’s
Shabbat Bag” in hand, and sets the
table, prepares the ehallah, the
eandles, the wine, the whole
Shabbos sehmear. And Israel! Oy,
Israel! After our babysitter gave
her an “I {heart} Israel” t-shirt,
Shoshi was so exeited that she
started to shake. (It was like a
Beatles eoneert.) When I was a
kid, Israel was more or less a far
away plaee on the map; my dad
was a braneh manager at the Is
raeli Diseount Bank of New York,
and we had some distant Holy
Land eousins. I liked knowing that
there was a Jewish State, but my
homeland was a plaee ealled Sub
urban New Jersey.
While my mostly a-religious
ehildhood laeked a eertain gravi-
tas, it also gave me a dose of
Ameriean freedom: freedom to
think and aet and eat and dress as
I liked (OK, I was free up to the
point my parents allowed, whieh,
now that I’m a dad, doesn’t seem
so bad at all). But the real issue
here is this: What kind of freedom
do I want for Shoshi? What hap
pens if Shoshi seeks the kind of
religious freedom she ean’t get at
home? What if she starts seeing
life in terms of observanee (good)
and non-observanee (bad)? I’d be
profoundly annoyed at myself if
she ever said to me, “Daddy,
I ean’t bring the kids over for din
ner beeause you guys aren’t
kosher,” or worse, “Sorry, Abba,
but you and Ema ean’t stay with
us in Jerusalem beeause your ‘eul-
tural Judaism’ is a bad influenee
on my little Akiva.”
As Mr. JBooks, I have my own
sort of Jewish pride. I believe in a
literary sort of Jewish People-
hood, in whieh the eentral rituals
are reading and writing and think
ing about the many genres of Jew
ish experienee. Conventional
ritual is fine for some, but to me,
being an “observant” Jewish
reader is more meaningful than,
say, wearing a kipah. Sol am am
bivalent about Seheehter when
they demand that every boy on
eampus wear religious headgear.
(Continued on next page)
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