April 2024 | Nisan 5784

What's Happening in the JLL

6/7th Grade Newsletter

As this JLL year rapidly comes to a close, please help our JLL Team plan for next year.

The JLL team appreciates your feedback as it helps move us forward in partnership toward fulfillment of the JLL mission.

Since returning from February break, 6th Graders have been exploring the Holocaust. The topics we covered included

• Hitler's rise to power
• Laws that were enacted by the German government that limited Jews' ability to participate in and contribute to society.
• Kristallnacht, or night of the broken glass, acknowledged to be the beginning of the Shoah
• First person testimonials from those (including teens) who experienced horrors during the Shoah
• Survival and Resilience after the end of the war

Students processed the information by creating "found poems" (see photos).

As the month of Nisan begins, the 6th Grade is turning their attention to Lo Ta'amod once again. Cohorts will be exploring methods of social change (Art, Direct Service, Philanthropy and Social Media) which will have them thinking concretely about the Lo Ta'amod project to which they will devote time during their BMitzvah year. The cohorts have been reminded to bring tzedakah each week which will be matched by Joanne, the JLL and Rabbi Blake to amplify the impact of the tzedakah collected by the students through the end of this JLL year. Students will have a say in where their collection is donated.

After February break, 7th Graders continued exploring how the Holocaust came about. According to Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg, the Holocaust was not one moment, but a series of stages that led up to the genocide of millions. Hilberg defines these six stages that led to the Shoah:

• Definition: Jews are defined as the “other” through legalized discrimination
• Isolation: Once labeled Jews are separated from mainstream society
• Emigration: Jews are encouraged to leave Germany. Escape was not often possible
• Ghettoization: Jews are forcibly removed to segregated sections (ghettos) of Eastern European cities
• Deportation: Jews are transported from ghettos to concentration camps and death camps
• Mass extermination: the final step in Hitler's "Final Solution"

As Nisan begins, 7th Grade is preparing for Passover with a medley of activities including:

• Exploring a variety of haggadot to find elements they have in common
• Playing Passover editions of Taboo and Family Feud
• Singing Passover songs
• Acting out the story of Exodus
• Reviewing the question with four answers

We are focused on

building community relationships, learning and fun!

• Please remind your child that they are required to park their cell phone at the start of each session to be retrieved only at 6:45 dismissal time.
• To uphold the Jewish value of Pikuach Nefesh, saving a life, no food or drink may be consumed in the JLL rooms.
• Check out our session recaps each week on Remini!