http://www.wickedlocal.com/marblehead/news/education/x1092581427

Teachers return from free trips to Israel

By Amy Sessler Powell
Thu Mar 06, 2008, 03:34 PM EST

Swampscott - With the return of the most recent group of 15 North Shore teachers, the Robert I. Lappin 1992 Supporting Foundation has now sent nearly 50 local Jewish educators on free Israel trips, affecting hundreds of students in all the area’s Jewish schools.

This most recent group included 15 teachers from the North Shore, joined by four teachers from Cape Cod and nine from Western Mass. All of the teachers traveled free as part of the Teachers to Israel program, designed to help Jewish educators bring passion for Israel back to their classrooms. The teachers from Cape Cod and Western Mass. are part of the first round of national T2I matching grants awarded to seven communities by the Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation and Oranim Educational Initiatives.

The trip also marks the first time one school, Temple Ahavat Achim in Gloucester, has sent every single one of its teachers on the T2I trip. Other schools are also reaching critical masses of teachers who have been and who believe it is making a difference.

Susan Novak, early childhood director at the North Suburban JCC in Peabody, who traveled this time with three other members of her staff, noted the continuity that comes from having staff members who preceded them on previous T2I trips or personal trips to Israel.

“They really made this trip come alive for the kids while we were gone,” Novak said. “Some of our teachers have already been to Israel, and they followed it so creatively with a giant map that had all of our downloaded pictures. It was almost like a ‘Where’s Waldo?’”

Now that even more teachers have been, Novak sees so many ways to bring the passion for Israel into the school.

“This is not about looking up text and presenting curriculum anymore,” Novak said. “This is now very real and in our hearts. Our center and our classrooms will have a different 60th birthday celebration than if we had not gone. This will not be just a cake.”

Deborah Coltin, Lappin Foundation executive director and trip leader, explained the transformation that occurs early in the trip.

“The realization of Israel’s size sets in very quickly,” she explained. “Teachers are amazed at the enormous accomplishments of this small country, and they feel extremely proud to be part of this wonderful Jewish family. In short, it’s almost like ‘love at first sight.’”

She added, “The Israel they come to know is not the ancient Israel they read about in books or the war-torn Israel they see on television. The joy and excitement they feel mirrors the vitality of the country. It’s beautiful to see their eyes open wide with wonder and amazement.”

Shlomo “Momo” Lifshitz, president of Oranim Educational Initiatives, the tour provider and a financial partner in the free T2I program, explained that on a short trip he can offer “this much knowledge,” holding his hands close, but “this much passion,” holding his arms wide. It is often the difference between teachers imparting the idea to students that “when they go” versus “if they go.”

In addition to touring the country and brainstorming the many ways to bring the passion back to the classroom, the group held a “mifgash,” or encounter, with Israeli teachers at a K-12 school in Tel Mond.

Coltin said the teachers paired off according to special interests or the ages they teach in the morning, attended a teacher’s college in the afternoon and enjoyed dinner with the teachers they met in the evening.

For Carmel Valianti, a teacher at Temple Ahavat Achim, this pairing led to plans for an ambitious, joint project. First, Valianti and the teacher she met, Maya, bonded immediately as each had a daughter with the other’s name. Then, they had paired with each other because of an interest in relating Jewish text to the environment. They both had done lessons on compostable materials and had brought recycling to their schools, but Valianti noticed the many flat roofs and the beating sun. That school was ripe for solar energy, but Maya explained that the school could not afford the photovoltaic panels.

Immediately they came up with a plan for Valianti’s students to raise funds for the panels while Maya’s students measured the roofs and studied the implementation. If it works out, the plan would save the Israeli school energy costs so that more money could be used toward education and create a strong bond between the Israeli and American schools.

Valianti was not the only one who formed a more lasting bond with the teachers. Many of the teachers developed pen-pal programs and vowed to stay in touch, hoping that “when” and not “if” their students go to Israel, they will meet their Israeli pen pals.

This year’s group includes teachers from nearly every single Jewish school in the Foundation service area, including the North Suburban JCC and Temple Beth Shalom in Peabody, Temple Emanu-El and the JCC of the North Shore in Marblehead, Hebrew College Prozdor, Temple Ahavat Achim in Gloucester, Congregation Ahavas Achim in Newburyport, Temple B’nai Abraham in Beverly and Congregation Shirat Hayam in Swampscott. It is the third group of teachers sent by the Lappin Foundation since the program’s inception in August 2006. This year, the Lappin Foundation awarded its first set of national matching grants to send 100 Jewish educators from seven communities on similar trips.

Other teachers were overwhelmed by a sense of belonging and family by simply being in an all-Jewish place. Anne Clarkin, one of the four teachers from the Falmouth Jewish Congregation, said it all hit her when Momo welcomed them “home” as they arrived in Israel.

“It was a really powerful sense of belonging,” she said. “Here on the Cape, there are not so many Jews, and we feel isolated.”

Clarkin and her colleagues planned to implement immediately parts of the trip in their family Shabbat service, which would be taking place shortly after their return. Pam Rothstein, director of the Cape Cod program, had paid to go on the last trip with the North Shore teachers and now a total of five of their staffers have been.

Coleman Reaboi, cantorial intern at Temple Beth Shalom in Peabody on his first trip to Israel, works with adults and teens in his temple, training for B’nai Mitzvah, teaching adult education and leading the choirs. He summed up the trip experience, “There are so many feelings when you go to the Wall. I feel very connected to the land, the people and I couldn’t stop smiling the whole time we were there.”

He added, “I got a real sense of Jewish identity and the feeling that I am part of something really big, a people and a history, and I have so much pride in who I am. I want my congregants and the kids to experience how really exciting it is to be a Jew and that everyone should be proud of their Jewish heritage and proud to grow up and lead a Jewish life.”

Added Jason Stark, youth director and teacher at Congregation Shirat Hayam in Swampscott, “Every Jew can and should try to make their way to Israel.”