Apr 9 2013
By Malina Saval at 9:42 am
So I totally get that sitting around with friends bashing your collective Hebrew school experience from the 80s is pretty much a national Jewish sport, and that we’re all so “traumatized” and “tortured” by the years spent in the cantor’s office memorizing our haftarah portions while wondering when his shiny black hair piece was finally going to fall off that now we’re all refusing to send our own kids to Hebrew school, complaining that it’s a waste of time and they’re not going to learn anything anyway.
But I’m here to tell you that sending my kids to Sunday morning religious school at our local Los Angeles area synagogue is quite possibly the best thing to happen to me post-childbirth since the prescription for Percoset that I got following my two emergency C-sections. Read the rest of this entry →
Apr 8 2013
By Sarah Emily Tuttle-Singer at 11:56 am
While we were in the art room at school today, my daughter asked me something in Hebrew in words I didn’t understand. “Say yes, mama!” She said. “Please say yes.”
“Baby, I can’t say yes, because I don’t understand what you want. For all I know you just asked me if you can get a tramp stamp, or move to Amsterdam.”
It’s like this, sometimes. She’ll say something that means something to her–I can see it in the way she clenches her jaw, and she flexes her fingers while she waits for her words to sink through the synapses of my American brain. Still, she wants an answer–even if it isn’t the answer she wants to hear–and when I look at her baffled, she sucks in her breath, and says, “You don’t listen to me.” Read the rest of this entry →
Mar 5 2013
By Brian Thomas at 11:56 am
If my relationship with Hebrew had to have a status, I’d pick, “It’s complicated.” But as I’m rapidly closing in on the fourth anniversary of my move to Israel, it really should be better.
For a while–just as Sarah wrote a few weeks ago–I was learning Hebrew from my eldest child, but that stopped. One day, two years ago, at the tender age of 4, he decided he wanted to speak English and that was that. How does a 4-year-old make that choice? Read the rest of this entry →
Feb 7 2013
By Sarah Emily Tuttle-Singer at 11:55 am
“We didn’t sign our son up for preschool,” my ex messaged me this morning.
Huh?
Evidently, somewhere in between everything, Expat Barbie over here missed the memo. Literally. A memo in Hebrew that went out to the parents about signing up for gan.
And ooohhhh, this raised issues for me. Nasty, mean issues like crusty alligators that lurk beneath the surface of my (deep) neuroses, emerging periodically to bite and snap in a carnivorous power struggle.
I’m reminded of a girl in my elementary school–Shella had chocolate eyes and hair that shone like the sun at high noon. At first, she wore dresses with too many frills. At first, her mouth shaped her words differently than ours. But that began to change. She cut her long silvery blonde hair by herself with a pair of toy scissors. She started wearing ripped jeans and t-shirts, just like us. American slang scattered from her lips carelessly, tripping her parents as they stumbled to catch up to her. Read the rest of this entry →
Jan 28 2013
By Judith Danovitch at 5:03 pm
I grew up in New York speaking Hebrew with my Israeli mother and at my day school, Spanish with my Argentinean father and grandparents, and English everywhere else. I enjoyed being able to talk to lots of people, but it wasn’t until I became a developmental psychologist that I fully understood what a wonderful gift my parents had given me.
Bilingualism has tremendous benefits, and not just when you are trying to find a bathroom in Tel-Aviv. Bilingual children are better at problem solving, planning, and self-control. A lifetime of bilingualism may even help delay the onset of dementia in old age. Read the rest of this entry →
Jan 22 2013
By Kveller at 3:04 pm
Working on raising brilliant bilingual kids? Luckily, the power to learn new languages these days is right at your fingertips. Gus on the Go is a language learning app for kids that features a cute little owl and a whole lot of fun adventures and games.
Gus on the Go features a special Hebrew edition that introduces basic Hebrew nouns to young children through fun pictures, interactive games, and audio from native Hebrew speakers. Gus on the Go: Hebrew is currently available for the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, and we’ve got five free promo codes to give away to five lucky readers. Read the rest of this entry →
Dec 19 2012
By Kveller at 9:33 am
Remember all those times we’ve talked about how great it is to raise bilingual children but how actually teaching them another language is, well, kind of hard? Well, we’re happy to report that if you’ve been wanting to teach your young ones some Hebrew basics, there’s an app for that.
The AlephBet App provides young children and their parents the ability to learn the Aleph Bet in an interactive and engaging way. Designed for young children, The AlephBet App is the first app to be recommended by the Jewish Montessori Society and offers parents and kids the opportunity for on demand learning. Featuring nearly 50 custom hand drawn illustrations, and the original song “Rakevet Alef Bet” by Dafna, The AlephBet App offers a sensory rich multimedia experience guaranteed to tempt even the most reluctant readers.
The app usually goes for $1.99 in the Apple Store, but for today only, it will be completely FREE for Kveller readers.
To get the app for your iPhone, click here. And to get it for your iPad, click here.
It’s as simple as that! Remember, this offer is valid for TODAY ONLY (Dec. 19, 2012). For more information, visit the AlephBet website here. Happy learning!
Nov 15 2012
By Avital Norman Nathman at 5:03 pm
I have to admit to feeling a rush of pride and satisfaction each time I hear my son call me Ima. And, for a gal who grew up begrudgingly bilingual, that’s a pretty big deal.
My first languages as a young child were English and Hebrew. With an Israeli father (and grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, cousins… you get the picture) and a mother who spent a chunk of her young adulthood in Israel, it should come as no big surprise that we were a bilingual house. My first words were “mom” and “aba.” I listened equally to Rafi and Tzippi Shavit, and my eyes were glued to both Sesame Street and Rehov Sumsum (and yes, I even had my own pair of brown, checkered slippers like Kippi).
But for some reason, instead of embracing this language gift I had been given, at some point in my childhood, I started to actively be embarrassed by it. Read the rest of this entry →
Oct 3 2012
By Tamara Reese at 12:12 pm
Naming a Jewish child comes with much responsibility
Naming another human being is a tremendous obligation.
It is the first of many duties of a parent and the name you choose will grace your child from the moment they are born. It is how you as parents will come to know your baby and how his friends will eventually call to him on the playground.
Naming a Jewish child comes with added responsibility. A boy’s Hebrew name will be spoken by his parents during prayer and blessing. It is the name by which he will be called by the Rabbi to the bimah on his Bar Mitzvah and the one his wife will lovingly commit to under the chuppah. And, God wiling, after a long, fruitful life, that same name will be whispered in Yahrzeit by his children and grandchildren.
One of the main sources of inspiration we use when naming our children, for both their Hebrew and English (secular) names, is a family tree. My husband and I both come from diverse backgrounds and we feel compelled to give our children meaningful names that reflect what we have passed on both historically and genetically. Read the rest of this entry →
Aug 9 2012
By Kveller at 2:47 pm
Looking for a fun way to add some Israeli flair into your kids’ lives? If you’re in the New York area, head over to Brooklyn and check out Keshetot, an innovative music, story, art, and movement program for infants and toddlers. It’s run by Israeli teachers and conducted exclusively in Hebrew, making it a great way for both you and your little ones to learn a little Hebrew and more about the Israeli culture. The program is for both non-Hebrew and Hebrew-speaking families, and is funded in part by the UJA Federation of New York.
Interested? Check out this video to get an exclusive look at what happens at Keshetot:
Keshetot meets at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The fall semester, which consists of 10 sessions every other Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 12 p.m., begins on September 23rd and runs through January 13, 2013. The price is $300 for families with one child and $350 for families with more than one child.
For registration and more details please contact: sarberman@cbebk.org, 718-768-3814 ext 245.
