Important note regarding the copying of programmes

Aims / Objectives :
Aims: Explore the relationship to Israel on different levels (personal, movement and jewish people).

Trigger :
Trigger (5 mins): kids enter room, on walls are five or so different maps of ‘Israel’ (political, biblical, revisionist, mandate, medieval). Kids walk around for a minute or so looking at maps, then are gathered to sit on the floor in the middle. Lights go down (although not completely). Madrich stands up and reads Gods covenant promising Israel to the jewish people, half way through another madrich stands up and reads …….. . When the last finishes reasing the lights go up and the kids are divided into three groups (decided beforehand) and are led to three diff rooms (one could stay in the trigger room).

Main part of the programme :
Method: Rotation between three different groups/rooms (Israel and me, Israel and LJY-Netzer and Israel and the Jewish people). Each session lasts 15 minutes. Each group will have a madrich with them throughout as well as each room having a madrich.

Israel and me: Quite simple. Split into twos . Given cherish style question sheet to go through. Must both answer each question and not miss any out. (questions at end).

Israel and LJY: Exercise looking at approaches to Israel from various sources. 10 different sources on sheets stuck on walls around room. In middle a stack of the quotes. They are to be read out in turn and the group decides who said them/ where they are from. They will be from a variety of sources but include ones from early progressive jewish sources (e.g. Pittsburgh platform), LJY-Netzer, Netzer Platform. They then have to select those sources which are somehow related to LJY-Netzer, either through progressive Judaism or reform Zionism/Netzer (It will be fairly obvious). They then need to place these on a chart ranging from anti-Zionist to strongly Zionist. With that done they can see any trends on this chart (roughly increases in Zionism over time). If time left dicuss at end if any of the sources and quotes surprised them.

Israel and the Jewish people: A bit more fun and interactive to break it up. The chanichim are given some sweets, dolly mixture if possible. The aim is for the Chanichim to make an analogy using the sweets to israel and the jewish people. Example. Israel and the Jewish people are like this gummy bear and this fried egg, because the bear(israel) provides protection from all of the eggs(jewish people) enemies who want to eat it. Sorry about the bad example but you see how it is done. They have to create there own analogy and explain it to the rest of the group. They then get to eat the sweets.

Conclusion :
Ending: All reasemble in original room. Short spiel along lines that they should hopefully by now appreciate by now that answering the question of what Israel means to Us is not a simple question, nor is it even one question. To close, we will hear something like an answer to that question from a famous Israeli poet. This poem was originally written in Hebrew by Yehuda Amichai, who was born in Germany in 1924 and emigrated to Palestine in 1936:
We forget where we came from. Our Jewish
names from the Exile give us away,
bring back the memory of flower and fruit, medieval cities,
metals, knights who turned to stone, roses,
spices whose scent drifted away, precious stones, lots of red,
handicrafts long gone from the world
(the hands are gone too).
Circumcision does it to us,
as in the Bible story of Shechem and the sons of Jacob,
so that we go on hurting all our lives.
What are we doing, coming back here with this pain?
Our longings were drained together with the swamps,
the desert blooms for us, and our children are beautiful.
Even the wrecks of ships that sunk on the way
reached this shore,
even winds did. Not all the sails.
What are we doing
in this dark land with its
yellow shadows that pierce the eyes?
(Every now and then someone says, even after forty
or fifty years: "The sun is killing me.")
What are we doing with these souls of mist, with these names,
with our eyes of forests, with our beautiful children,
with our quick blood?
Spilled blood is not the roots of trees
but it's the closest thing to roots
we have.

Resources:
maps, 2 sheets flip-chart paper, three bags assorted dolly mixture

Notes:
None