Students at the Jewish Educational Center’s Rav Teitz Mesivta Academy in Elizabeth join in celebrating Purim with Israelis in Sderot via a live webcast on March 20.
March 27, 2008
The wonders of the Internet allowed students in Elizabeth to join in celebrating Purim with Israelis in the Negev town of Sderot, the target of frequent Kassam rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip.
Last Thursday, March 20, students at the Jewish Educational Center’s Rav Teitz Mesivta Academy gathered together — in an activity enacted in 30 other schools around the country — and watched a live webcast of the megilla reading from the synagogue in Sderot in Israel, as part of a shared Purim celebration.
The event, coordinated by the Consulate General of Israel in New York, was designed to foster solidarity with the bombarded Negev community.
The students heard a talk in English from the head of the yeshiva in Sderot and one in Hebrew from the community’s rabbi. They also watched a multimedia presentation about the town.
According to academy principal Rabbi Elchanan Weinbach, during the megilla reading, at the first mention of Haman, the villain of the Purim story, everyone yelled out loud in a “worldwide shout-down.”
The whole event was briefly delayed at the start, however, when sirens sounded the alarm in Sderot and people there had to take shelter until an all-clear was confirmed.
Weinbach said, “Setting the stage for the boys to help them understand the situation in Sderot was not easy, but when that happened, it really brought home the reality for them. The whole event was very moving.”
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