Year 7 Shorashim evening
Daphna Levin-Kahn – Head of Jewish Studies High School
Yesterday, our very first online Shorashim evening was a moving example of the warmth and care of our Emanuel School community.
After a mammoth run of all 82 students creating online versions of their beautiful albums, recording their fascinating presentations, getting all of those successfully onto the Shorashim Google Site (which took Mr Garry Case, Head of eLearning, hours of dedication and ingenuity to build) and dealing with some amusing teething problems, the evening was a very relieving success and greatly enjoyed by all – staff, students and families alike!
Heartfelt thanks to Garry Case, Ben Marshall, Year 7 Jewish Studies staff – Becky Goldberg and Gil Balfas, and, of course, our wonderful Zoom Room hosts, Rebecca Gaida, Ruth Harvey, Eytan Messiah, Remi Owen, Jenny Selinger and Jenny Udovich, who showed real care and flare for online engagement, for making the night such a success.
Thanks also for all the kind messages from parents and grandparents that flowed in after the event. This example reflects the essence of many of these lovely notes:
Huge thanks and congratulations to you and the entire Jewish Studies team for such a special evening last night. It was a technological and logistical triumph, which we know required tremendous creativity and hard work on your part to pull it off. We felt completely immersed in the experience and fully enjoyed all the presentations and were touched by the amazing stories of the students’ ancestors. Thanks again and kind regards, Alisa
We are so proud of all the Year 7 students who have learned so much about their heritage, honed many skills on the Shorashim journey and risen to meet this unusual challenge with energy and creativity. Mazal tov!
Benjamin Fram, Ashley Cohn, Jayden Segal
Below are the opening words from our Year 7 spokespeople: Benjamin Fram, Ashley Cohn and Jayden Segal. I couldn’t have said it better myself:
Good evening Parents, Grandparents, Siblings and Students. As we cannot have parents and relatives at school at the moment, we are instead having this evening over Zoom. So before we start, what is Shorashim? Shorashim in Hebrew comes from the word shoresh, meaning root. We find that name to be so meaningful because Shorashim is about finding your Roots, celebrating your Roots and exploring your heritage.
Shorashim is all about acknowledging our Jewish heritage and showing that we are proud of that said heritage. For the past two and a half terms, all of us have been researching and discovering more about our family, ancestors and the roots that make up our family trees. This project is the biggest one of Year 7, we started the project just as quarantine started and have been working diligently ever since then.
Because we can’t display all of our wonderfully decorated albums, each student has created our own unique online version of our albums, so that you can all view them from home. We have also made presentations and speeches so that we can tell you more about our projects, and give you insight into our family stories. All you parents will have written your own special prayer for your child/ren just for tonight. These prayers were made especially for the Year Seven students, as a little extra piece of the puzzle that is Shorashim. All students have created their own prayers as well, so it is almost like you have been a part of the project too!
We hope that you have a wonderful night and that you learn something new about your own family or other families. Thank you.
Mazal tov again for last year’s finalists and grand finalist, Sienna Poswell, who received their medals from the United Israel Appeal on Tuesday.
