by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

February 07, 2008

Students from Newark’s Science Park High School had plenty of questions for their peers at the Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School.

“When do you start learning to read the Hebrew characters?”

“What part of the Torah do the kosher laws come from?”

“What do you guys do for fun here?”

After a morning spent in classes at Kushner in Livingston on Jan. 31, the visitors had a lively discussion with their hosts over lunch (chicken and kugel) in the student activity building.

It was the second meeting of this unlikely group of about 25 students from Kushner’s Jewish civics club and peer leaders from Science Park High. They met first in November, when Kushner students visited Science Park. A third session is planned for Feb. 19 at the Museum of Tolerance in Manhattan, and the year will culminate in a joint social action project.

“Our goal was to promote greater tolerance, respect, and understanding between Jewish groups and minority groups,” said Kushner guidance counselor Rabbi Richard Kirsch, who leads the civics club. “We thought, what better way than through this swapping manner — getting together at each other’s schools and having these informal discussions.”

Julia Santos, a social worker and the peer leadership adviser at the Newark school, said Science High, which prepares urban and minority students for careers in math, science, and technology, has no Jewish students. “It’s good for both schools to have exposure to each other,” said Santos. “It’s good to open up my students’ minds, and good to open the Kushner students’ minds, and build tolerance.”

Students expressed their respect for each other not only in their comments but also in their dress — all the Science Park girls decided on their own to wear skirts to Kushner, where girls, required to follow rules of modest dress, do not wear pants.

During the visit, barriers quickly dropped. “So many people are so limited,” said Khadijet Yekeen, a 12th-grader from Science Park wearing a Muslim head scarf. Some people, she said, “if they see Jews or something, they’re going to crack jokes, they’re going to make fun of them; they’re going to make them feel bad. But when I see them, I see a whole new world. It’s just cool how they live.”

Pinny Wasser of West Orange, a junior at Kushner, agreed. “It’s really cool to see outside the yeshiva world,” he said.

At one end of a long table, students from the two schools mingled easily, asking hard questions, giggling about what’s permitted between boys and girls in their respective schools, and discussing what it’s like to be called “Jew” or “Dominican” walking down the street.

Arielle Shack, a Kushner senior from Livingston, was surprised at what she found during her visit to Science Park. “When we were in Newark, they had so much diversity, but everyone was in their clique by race and everything. I thought they all live together. I thought everyone hung out. I had no idea it was cliqued out by where they live in the community. I guess if we went to their school we’d be the same — we’re all Jewish, and we’d probably join our own clique too.”

A suggestion from one student about working on a local service project — collecting toiletries for people in homeless shelters — quickly turned into a collaborative effort. Heads nodded and the project quickly expanded to include blankets and an effort to get both schools to arrange to distribute unused food from their special events and cafeterias at the shelters.

Students from both schools seemed energized by the project. “I like change — period,” said Raymon Azcona, a 12th-grader from Newark. “The networking skills are being built and I’m being exposed to a new world.”

Said Jesse Marcus, 16, a Kushner student from West Orange: “The kids in my school, they only see their own people. It’s kind of like a big bubble at Kushner. So it’s good to get to see other people and the way they live and maybe become friends with them. I think the Jewish community could learn from this as well.”