Fifty-Six Preschool Students Walk to Temple for Shabbat
As Jews, parents and educators, many of us ask how we can best teach our children about Judaism and help them to find their faith relevant in their lives.
Every Friday morning, the Michele Block Gan Yeladim Preschool of the Jewish Community Alliance (JCA) holds a “mock Shabbat” for its students. On May 6th, this learning opportunity became a field trip for their Junior Kindergarten (4 year olds) and Kindergarten students, who took the short walk from the JCA to Congregation Ahavath Chesed (The Temple).
“This illustrates the long-standing relationship of mutual support that we have with the JCA and Gan Yeladim Preschool,” said Rabbi Lief of Congregation Ahavath Chesed. “We are excited to help provide a friendly context of Jewish life for these students. It is important to give children a positive Jewish experience.”
About 56 children arrived at 10:30 a.m. and joined Rabbi Lief and Jo-Ellen Unger, Temple’s Director of Education and Youth, for stories, music and lively worship in the Sanctuary. “I am especially excited to be accompanied by Jo-Ellen who oversees our TIR (Temple Institute of Religion) program and helps about 300 children ages 3 to teens get a Jewish education on Sunday mornings. Her musical talents and ability to relate to the children really enhanced our Shabbat experience.”
Challah and grape juice completed their worship, before the students moved over to Hilda’s Garden, the children’s section of Temple’s Wurn Family Library. Librarian Virginia Singer read from the book Noah’s Ark by Linda Hayward and shared the resources of the library with them. “I love seeing the children here,” she said. “Our library is open to everyone and is a resource to our community with 16,000 books on a variety of topics of Jewish interest.” Teachers were able to check out books to take back to their classrooms for later reading.
“The Temple is an opportunity right in our neighborhood to broaden the Jewish exposure our students receive,” said Rochelle Golomb, Assistant Director of Early Childhood Education at Gan Yeladim. “It provides a place where the children can see where a Torah is housed and how Shabbat is experienced as a community. Our library is small, but the one at Temple has 4000 children’s books available to our students.”
Everyone believes this is just the latest in a long series of learning opportunities for the students of Gan Yeladim. On May 20th, Rabbi Lief will host Shabbat worship for the 2 and 3 year old preschoolers at the JCA. “This is a return visit for him,” said Gottlieb. “He came to blow the shofar for us on Rosh Hashanah.”
Partnerships such as this one enhance the Jewish learning opportunities for all of our children and help to guarantee the future of Jacksonville’s Jewish community.
To learn more about the Michele Block Gan Yeladim Preschool, call 730-2100 Ext. 237. For more information on Congregation Ahavath Chesed’s Temple Institute of Religion program, call 733-7078.
