Gmar Hatima Tova

We saw our classes finally! The word for hot mess in hebrew is balagan, and I think it helps me to describe what I saw. Beit Shean is economically depressed. The schools are some of the worst in the country, the resources so thin even in comparison to even schools that the ITF program is assigned to. Many of our schools lack hallways or textbooks, and none of us have classrooms of our own to teach in. I am lucky to at least be working with a teacher who is kind and speaks English relatively well. Most of the English teachers in this town are inexperienced, speak the language poorly, and have very little control over their classrooms. Students here walk in and out of class, talk through the entire lesson, hit other students, and rarely do the work. There is little lesson planning and zero classroom management, and a class might spend an entire hour on a one-page worksheet. Teachers get exasperated and yell often, to little avail. The environment is not at all conducive to learning. Few students can understand basic questions. Many of the students come from poor backgrounds and broken homes, and the aim of teachers is often primarily to create a safe environment for kids, with education being secondary. And yet they are sweet, bright, and very motivated to learn. Just my presence seems to be appreciated more than I could have ever expected. They delighted at hearing their names spoken with an American accent. They asked me to sing songs from all the popular American artists. They would show off all the words they knew in a rush, hellogoodbyefathermotherredbluegreenyellow. There is no concept of speaking one at a time, and my head buzzed as they all shouted over each other to catch my attention. A group of girls ran giggling out of the room, and came back holding index card with my name written on it and candies stapled to every corner. To fathom the needs of this community and the impact I can have on it is overwhelming. I am so thankful to be here.

Yom Kippur in Beit Shean is quite beautiful. Families gather for feasts before sundown, and then dress in white and go to services. There are 72 synagogues in Beit She'an (a population of 18,000), and they represent every Sephardic country you can imagine. Dan and I visited a Moroccan shul close to our house, and the services are different from ones I attended in America. They are dischordant and friendly. Teenaged boys pull at each other's talits, and when the congregation chants together, the children compete to be loudest. Prayers are not sung but chanted in a jumble over each other, and the stream of hebrew is constant. Women sit in a balcony area away from the eyes of the men, praying quietly and switching toddlers from hip to hip to hip. I was overwhelmed by the lack of singing, direction, or English, but an American cannot hide forever in such a small town. A woman with deep wrinkles and a covered head noticed me flipping through the wrong prayer book, and silently pushed the correct siddur into my hands. Another woman cocked her head curiously and asked me a question in Hebrew, and I shrugged shyly to show I didn't understand. Suddenly I was revealed, and every woman's head looked up from their praying, as if a switch had flipped in the small balcony. Like in the classroom, faces crowded my vision as everyone asked me questions in rapid Hebrew- what is your name, where are you from, who are your parents, what school are you teaching at, how many other Americans are here, are you married? I stumbled through the answers with the few words I knew. A young girl with decent English was called from the other room to interpret. No I am not married, I answered, and soft hands patted my knee. Soon, soon, they reassured me. I am teaching at Tachkimoni, I explained, and a few women looked brightly at me. My daughter goes there! My aunt is a teacher there! I smiled and nodded and tried to remember names. One woman took me to the edge of the balcony and pointed to men below. See the man davening in front of the Torah? That is my father. And the man praying next to him? That is his brother. The woman sitting here? She is his daughter, my cousin. And that boy making faces over there? He is my son. She smiled at me and held my hand tightly in hers. Baruch haban, she said, welcome.

Over two hours later I left the shul, prayers still in full swing. The car-less streets were filled with people, a sea of white. It is a tradition unique to the town. Teenagers whispered in gender-segregated clumps, children played soccer in the middle of the road, men kissed each other in greeting. I saw every single person I had ever met in Beit She'an, including friends of my program director, girls I had met in services just an hour before, relatives of our host families, and the mayor. People stroll late into the night, wishing each other meaningful fasts and a good writing in the book of judgement. Kippur day was quiet, and we broke the fast with an Israeli family, and then built a sukkah and drank beer and relaxed late into the evening.