Shorashim 

This year’s Shorashim evening gave our Year 7 students the opportunity to showcase the fruits of their labour – the beautiful records of their family histories and journeys. The project was a wonderful example of the innovative collaboration between departments, as the Jewish Studies albums also included Family Trees with names and titles in Hebrew for the first time and the display tables also boasted the creative and eye-catching Design and Technology ‘My Family and Me’ element of the Shorashim projects.

During the formal proceedings, the United Israel Appeal (UIA) Shaliach, Adi Gefen-Adler reflected on his own Shorashim project experience when he was at school and highlighted the strengthening of the connections the project makes between generations. Adi then presented the awards and a $1000 Israel Program voucher each to last year’s UIA Shorashim project winners, Ruby Hurwitz and Alexis Joffe. Mazal tov!

Here are some thoughts and comments from the evening:

Ilan Meshel’s artefact is a Medal of Honour that his great-grandfather received for fighting in WWII. His grandmother said: “It is extremely important that my grandson is so interested in my father’s life. I am so proud of him for taking such an interest.”

Ben (BJ) Shapiro’s great aunt: “The Project is a wonderful idea because they have the history of the family forever. Things get lost over the years and this is a wonderful way to preserve it.”

Michael Strizhevsky’s grandmother said: “The artefact that Michael wrote about is a mini Torah which we smuggled out of Russia. It is passed down to each Strizhevsky male. Michael will be the 6th generation to be the Torah’s custodian when he celebrates his Bar Mitzvah in December.”

“I really enjoyed walking around and seeing everyone else’s Shorashim albums, but it was also great to watch people in our Tutor Group’s presentations. I enjoyed all of the presentations in my Group. I thought they were all well-structured and I learnt a lot. I really liked the whole evening.

“My advice for next year’s Shorashim students would be: “Please don’t stress because that is the worst. I promise it’s not that bad and you learn a lot. Also, don’t leave it until last minute because that will be really stressful and you don’t want that. I hope you all learn as much as you can and good luck!” Eden Grynberg

“It was really nice seeing the MPH full of the albums, projects and artefact cards which brought smiles to a lot of our faces that all our hard work was being put on show. I enjoyed looking through albums and listening to other presentations, and some were very funny and engaging too. For all next year’s Shorashim students, my advice is to just enjoy it and have fun. You will definitely learn something, don’t stress too much. It’s worth it, so don’t waste it!” Tammy Kurlansky

“The Shorashim evening was so lovely. Thank you so much for all of the work the Jewish Studies and Design and Technology departments have put into getting the students ready. I wish I had more time to look through all of the albums. The ones that I did manage to look through were amazing. My Tutor Group did a really good job presenting their work and parents were very supportive.” An email from Sarah Jenkins, Year 7 Rashi Tutor

A big thank-you goes to the staff who came to support the students during the evening and listen to their presentations; Garry Case, Lara Ephron, Neil Furman, Sarah Jenkins, Karen McAndrew and Rabbi Siegel; to Michelle Favero for the lovely photographs, to the Maintenance and Security teams, Ben Marshall and Esti Lipson for helping prepare for the event and to all the students and their families for helping create such memorable family histories. We hope you enjoy them for many years to come.

Shana Tova U’metuka

!שנה טובה ומתוקה

Daphna Levin-Kahn, Rebecca Gaida and Becky Goldberg