Content for class "past" Goes Here

COMMUNITY NEWS

Eden Pre-Primary

By Norma Bloch and Julie Levy

Shalom

Our preschool Judaica lessons are always a blast,

Learning stories from our present and our past.

Each morning we gather together and we meet,

Morah Julie our teacher we welcome and greet.

Each chag is celebrated in a unique and special way,

Games, stories and songs we enjoy on the festive day.

Our exciting New Hebrew programme has recently just begun,

Learning about the tallit, mezuzah and much more is such fun.

Our weekly Shabbat lesson is what we love and enjoy best.

Lighting candles, eating challah as we prepare for the day of rest.

A puppet for each member of the family we will make and design.

Imah, Abba, ben, and bat are all in the mishpachah that is mine.

Now that we have come to the end of our poem and our rhyme

I am sure you all must agree that at Judaica we have a wonderful time.


Eden School

Norma Bloch

The extremely busy, but short 4th term began on a bitter sweet note. At our annual Judaica Prize-Giving, we bade a sad farewell to Rabbi SamThurgood. When Rabbi Thurgood arrived at Eden College 4 years ago, he took the Judaica department by storm. This dedicated and passionate young man set about restructuring the syllabus, implementing new programmes, motivating the pupils to attend prayers regularly, and instilling in them a love of their religion and heritage.

He is loved by all his pupils from Grade 000 - Grade 12. I personally witnessed a Grade 2 boy burst into tears when he was informed by his teacher that the Rabbi was unable to teach him on that particular day. Wow, what a compliment!!! We will really miss him and wish him every happiness and success in his future endeavours. The evening continued on a happier note when we acknowledged the achievements of so many of our pupils. These diligent scholars were awarded prizes for their outstanding academic performance as well as their dedicated service to the community. I would like to make mention of a few of these awards.

Gmilut Chassadim Award - presented by the Union of Jewish Women - Joel Kaplan
DHSA Award - Doron Werner
KNZC Herman and Geraldine Davidson Award -Oren Cohen

After the Rabbi's departure, we were privileged to have Rabbi Perez visit the department. As usual, he had the pupils in the primary and high school enthralled by his inspirational lessons on Chanukah. His visits are always a highlight of the term. Exam fever gripped the high school for the remainder of the school year. All around the school, pupils could be seen huddled in groups, studying enthusiastically and discussing the upcoming papers. We wish them the best of luck and are confident that our pupils will do us proud.

Lessons carried on as normal for primary school pupils. Lessons were interspersed by tests, outings and parties. Most of our lessons and activities were based on the Chanukah theme. The pupils were inspired by the powerful images of the miracles of the small Jewish army's victory over the huge Seleucid Greek army, and by the miracle of the one-day supply of oil burning eight days in the re-dedication of the Temple. It was fitting to end this eventful and highly successful year by enjoying the delicious Chanukah delicacy of potato latkes at our final Shabbat celebration.

We look forward to a successful 2013.

Ad


Eden Pre Primary

AdWe are having so much fun! We have all learned how to blow the shofar and can do it like champions! We can also recognise all of the different sounds: The long, straight Tekia that sounds like an elephant! Shevarim - the three medium sized ones that sounds like crying, and Teruah - lots of little ones that sound like a baby!

We have also discovered a great Jewish video - It's called "The Marvellous Middos Machine" but we call it "Shnoekie", after our favourite character. It was actually made as an audio tape years and years ago, but recently it was turned into a great puppet video. It teaches us all about Middot (or Middos) which is how to be a good person and how we're supposed to behave to everyone. Some of the lessons we have learned: Don't be unkind to each other, always tell the truth, and watch our for the evil Dr Doomshtein!

You can watch it on your computer if you type in: http://goo.gl/DmZtK

And you can watch our shofar blowing here: http://youtu.be/VkR7WWcCj-s

We wish you a wonderful year ahead, full of smiles, love, and Jewish learning!

Rabbi Sam Thurgood


Eden Pre Primary

Hi everyone!

Let me tell you, it is fun to be Jewish in Eden PrePrimary! We have a lot of excitement in our lessons - we sing songs, tell stories, and even act out stories! Do you know the story of Avraham working in his father's shop? His father sold idols, and one day he left Avraham in charge of the shop. Avraham knew that idols were silly and bad, and he smashed them all - except the big one. When his dad came home, Avraham said the idols did it. His dad said "That can't be, they can't talk or move!" Then Avraham said "Why do you pray to them?" He was very clever. We take turns being Avraham's dad, the visitors in the shop, the big idol, and we even get to be the hammer!

When we learn about the Torah, we get up and take our pretend Torah and dance around and sing! Everyone gets a chance to hold the Torah, and we can't wait until we can grow up and get to dance with the real Torah!

We have been learning more stories in the Torah - all the way from Adam and Eve until the Jewish people are out of Egypt and in the desert. They finished all of their Matza and didn't have food, but Hashem gave them special bread from Hashem.They didn't know what it was so they said "Man?" which means "What is that?" We call it manna, and that's why we have Challah on Shabbat, to remind us of this special bread. No matter how much people took, they all came home with just the right amount (Hashem made a miracle) so being greedy didn't help anyone! On Friday they took double so that they would have for Shabbat as well, and that's why we have two Challat on Shabbat, to remind us of the double amount of manna!

Thanks for reading, we look forward to telling you more next time!

Rabbi Sam Thurgood

Ad


Eden Pre Primary

Hi Everyone!

It's been another great month for the Pre-Primary in Eden College. We've had so many activities and so much excitement - here are some of the Jewish things we've done:

We loved our birthday party for Israel, which we celebrated with all of the other Jewish children, even the really big ones - and there were balloons that we could take home!

Shabbat at school is always wonderful, we learn about all of the things on the Shabbat table, why we have them and how to have a beautiful Shabbat. Do you know why we cover the Challah? Because when Hashem gave the Jewish people food in the desert, He didn't want it to get all dirty on the sand, so He covered the sand, put down the food, and then put a cover on top so that the sand wouldn't blow onto it. That's why we have a Challah board underneath the Challah, and a Challah cover on top!

We also have two short videos from one lesson that we'd love you to see - we sing Modeh Ani every morning when we wake up to thank Hashem for making us alive, and we are so excited for Shavuot! Shavuot is when Hashem gave us the Torah, and that is the most precious thing. We wouldn't sell the Torah even for a million rand!

http://tiny.cc/gmlcew (Modeh Ani)

http://tiny.cc/mrlcew (Shavuot Song)

We've been learning lots of stories from the Torah, from Adam and Eve all the way to Rachel and Leah - ask us about them, we know them really well! We even taught Rabbi Thurgood some things he didn't know, even though we're only 4, 5 and 6 years old - did you realise that Eisav never says please once? Not even in Parshat Toldot when he asks Yitzchak for a blessing!

(By the way, we had to learn that a blessing doesn't mean a chocolate you get in Shul for your birthday!)

See you soon!