Livingston—To commemorate Yom HaShoah, the JKHA Middle School participated in an interdisciplinary day of Holocaust studies. After viewing the ‘Names Not Numbers’ video created by last year’s eighth grade, the students were taught that the greatest gift in a post-Holocaust world is the gift of a Jewish education. In each type of class, students learned about the Holocaust in relation to that particular discipline. The Judaic studies classes focused on ethical and religious questions that arose in the ghettos. They studied the works of Rav Oshry who was faced with many of these difficult questions, and whose answers reflect a heartbreaking sensitivity to Jewish lives and halacha. Additionally, they analyzed the religious response to tragedy, looking at passages from Tanach and determining their relevance post-Holocaust.
Social Studies classes discussed the timeline of events, to have a better framework of when the Holocaust occurred in the context of the history that they are studying. Maps were examined to get a better idea of what countries in Europe were affected and where they are in relation to each other.
In science class, students were informed of the experiments that Dr. Joseph Mengele performed on Jewish twins. They heard about two sets of twins that survived the horrors of the Holocaust, some of whom went on to build beautiful Jewish families.
Math classes analyzed the numbers of Jews who were killed in the Shoah. They looked at percentages of Jews killed from each country, and charted the rate of Jewish population growth before and after the War. The students developed their own hypotheses for what might have been the reason for the changes they observed.
In Ivrit, students explored Hebrew texts relating to the Holocaust. They ascertained the way the Shoah is in taught in Israel and the impact it has had on the lives of their teachers.
English classes used this opportunity to reflect on literature that they have read about the Holocaust. Afterwards, students engaged in creative writing that reflected the feelings that a Jew might have had during the War and contrasted them to the feelings of a Jewish person living today.
JKHA reported that their stellar faculty pushed the students to think about these connections to their lives and how to take meaning from the facts and numbers that they learned about. It was an impactful and memorable day for both faculty and students.
By Rabbi Adam Hertzberg
