by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

January 8, 2009

Emily Kalver, 13, of Morristown hadn’t really been following events in Israel and Gaza closely. But after spending 45 minutes discussing the current situation in her eighth-grade social studies class at the Nathan Bohrer-Abraham Kaufman Hebrew Academy of Morris County, she got a new plan.

“I think I’m going to start paying attention to what’s going on,” she told a visitor to her class on Jan. 6. “And when I see a headline that says, ‘20 Palestinians killed and 1 Israeli,’ I’m going to find out what really happened instead of thinking, ‘Oh, they died and we didn’t.’”

On their second day back from winter break, middle schoolers at the day school in Randolph swapped their regular history curriculum for an overview on the situation in Gaza provided by head of school and native Israeli Moshe Vaknin.

In 15 minutes, he delivered a briefing packed with context, history, current events, military strategy, Jewish values, Israeli perspectives, and personal anecdotes. He took the students back to 1967, through the peace treaties with Egypt, to the creation of Hamas, and up to the present, with a quickly drawn map as a visual aid. He offered the Israeli perspective on why the action began.

“Over the years [Hamas] would start shelling Israeli settlements. Sderot is here, Ashkelon is here, Ashdod is here,” Vaknin said. “Israel really tried to hold and hold. For eight years, Israel is doing everything possible not to go into Gaza. Gaza is the most densely populated country in the world. But Israel just couldn’t hold off. Two weeks ago [Hamas] fired 60 rockets in one day. All the kibbutzim and cities and the people had enough. We decided to go into Gaza and give them a massive blow so they would be discouraged from doing it again.”

Anticipating questions regarding lopsided casualties, he added, “People say, ‘Well, Israelis killed 500 Palestinians and only one Israeli is killed.’ Do you know why? Israelis are not in the street. Everyone has to go into bomb shelters.

“Can you imagine for eight years you cannot go to the playground to play, that you have to be 15 seconds from a concrete block?”

He spoke of the Grad rocket that struck an empty kindergarten in Ashdod on Monday.
“If there were kids there they were going to all be killed or severely injured. Thank God we don’t have casualties because everybody is in bunkers or with relatives in the north.”

When he finished, students had their chance to ask questions. And there were plenty of them.
“Why don’t people leave the areas being bombed?” “Didn’t Israel kill something like 500 Palestinians?” “Is America sending aid to Israel?” “What if Hizbullah gets involved?” “Is Mahmoud Abbas part of Hamas?” “Why aren’t we trying to cut off supplies coming from Iran?”

Eighth-graders listen to Moshe Vaknin’s lesson on history, military strategy, Jewish values, and Israeli perspectives.

“It is important to keep students updated with current events. It is part of our Jewish studies curriculum, and we are connected to the Land of Israel,” said Vaknin. “Students need to understand what is going on so they can feel empowered, proud, and speak intelligently about what is happening.”
Adam Rubenstein, 13, of Randolph has been following the news from Israel closely; but Vaknin’s quick sketch helped him understand the positions of the adversaries involved, he said.

The teacher’s talk also affected his own take on Israel’s actions. “I thought Israel might be going too far. Now,” he said, “I think it’s just right and needs to be done.”

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