In honor of Jewish Book Month, I write this message as an ode to the literary tradition of our people (of the book). Jewish Book Month lasts from November 24 to December 24 each year and is a project of the Jewish Book Council. For those unfamiliar with this wonderful organization, JBC is an 80+ year-old organization whose mission is to celebrate and support Jewish literacy. Most importantly, one of JBC's main leaders is a Beit Rabban parent and board member, Miri Pomerantz Dauber! Another Beit Rabban parent and board member, Tali Rosenblatt Cohen, recently launched a podcast during this Jewish Book Month called "The Five Books," for which the Jewish Book Council serves in an advisory role. This podcast features Jewish authors with a new book, and Tali interviews them about five books that have most impacted them. As a proud bibliophile, I have been enthusiastically awaiting the launch of this podcast, and it has increased my Jewish Book Month joy to a whole new level this year. In case folks are interested, since I will never write a book and make it onto the podcast, here are my top 5 influential books:
The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
A Problem from Hell, Samantha Powers
The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults, Frances E. Jensen
From Father to Son, Devora Steinmetz
It is extremely hard to narrow down this list to five, so kudos to Tali's guests. I must add that I have LOVED many other books, especially non-fiction books about Jewish history, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, The AIDS Crisis, and school culture, as well as novels that are apocalyptic, include magic realism, and/or are set in the early days of the State of Israel.
My gift to you this Jewish Book Month, inspired by the Five Books podcast, is five highlights from Beit Rabban that celebrate reading, books, and text:
Monday was Rosh Chodesh, and just as we do on every Rosh Chodesh, each 3rd -8th-grade student met with their designated "reading buddy" in preschool-2nd grade and read them stories. During their weekly service learning class, 6th and 7th graders read to preschool classes (other groups help with facilities needs, and others write community cards). This afternoon, I received a beautiful video of a 7th-grade student reading to preschoolers. She held the class like a veteran teacher!
Our students love Jewish text study. Just this afternoon, we had the CEO of The Hebrew Free Loan Society speak with middle school students about his work, and he began with a text study of biblical sources for the mitzvah of loaning money. At the end of the presentation, during "compliments and appreciations," many of the students eloquently thanked him for starting with a text study and helping them contextualize this work in Jewish sources.
We arrange regular author talks in partnership with the Jewish Book Council, highlighting authors who reflect the breadth of Jewish diversity. Students read the author's book in advance and then hear from them about their writing process and background. This week, our middle school students heard from Ruth Behar, whose newest book, Across So Many Seas, tells the story of a Jewish family from 1492 to the present, following them from Spain, Turkey, Italy, Cuba, and beyond. I joined part of the program, and these middle school students were on the edge of their seats as if they were watching Wicked on opening night.
Our incredible principal, Ingrid, director of Judaic studies and Ivrit, Lisa, and teachers love teaching literacy. Over the past few years, they have overhauled our reading and writing programs in English and Hebrew. This warrants its own series of emails. Suffice it to say that these folks are OBSESSED with research-based techniques that empower every one of our students with critical literacy skills. You can learn more about the Science of Reading on the EBLI website, and you are welcome to join Ingrid and Lisa at our next Cafe Rabban on Monday morning, December 16, to go even deeper into this topic.
We take so much pride in our students' love of reading, and the apple does not fall from the tree. We have an incredible number of book authors among our parent body, not to mention the many who write scholarly articles, teach Jewish text, and work in the literary world. At the risk of missing someone, shout-outs to Prof. Jeremy Dauber, Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, Prof. Jessica Lang, Yehuda Kurtzer, Amy Klein, Talia Hurwich, Prof. Evan Parks, Prof. Yedida Koren, and Prof. Amit Gevaryahu for birthing beautiful books!
Finally, in celebration of Jewish Book Month, I am delighted to announce that we will complete our fifth-floor library this month, and we look forward to dedicating it in the coming months. This process has been a labor of love for some time now: determining where to house the library to maximize use (it's in the hallway!), developing a lending system that doesn't require a library, deciding who will manage the library (middle schoolers in their community service class), building our collection of books, and sorting and organizing books in alphabetical order by author (thank you to all students, alums, parents and staff members who helped). We even have a group of students working on very intricate Sifriyah and Library signs for almost a month.
This library has been dedicated by some incredibly generous donors to our building campaign, which we launched a year and a half ago to enable the move to our beautiful new home. I am delighted to share that our building campaign has been very successful. However, it is not over. We are about a million dollars away from our pledge goal of $4.5 million. We need you to help us get there.
This December, during Jewish Book Month, help us empower our children with their birthright of Jewish literacy by making a gift to the Beit Rabban Building Campaign here.
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