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THE JEWISH NEWS
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This Week's Top Stories
Learning The Future
Temple Israel students thrive in the school's new media center.
DAVID ZEMAN STAFF WRITER
Sincerity
Beneath
The Glitter
High-profile tours of Israel are
leaving mixed emotions in the
Jewish state and America.
N
HOWARD J. LALLI CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
F
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PHOTO BY DANIEL LIPP ITT
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s a class of Hebrew students program was clear and understandable.
filed in, the tedium of learning "I don't like stuff that doesn't make sense
a difficult, unconventional lan- to me," he said.
The center, which features 12 com-
guage gave way to mounting
excitement as they were reac- puter terminals, opened in earnest last
quainted with a most popular September. By the end of the school year,
more than 1,500 students from nursery
teacher: a computer.
Within minutes, the class of through high school will have trained on
11- and 12-year-olds at Temple the computers, learning from interactive
Israel were transfixed by a program that programs about Hebrew, geography and
helped them spell and pronounce a slew Jewish history.
"The opportunities are just endless,"
of new Hebrew words. They tapped on
marvels Bryna Leib, director
mouses, listened on head-
of the kindergarten and nurs-
phones, and mouthed their
Dayna Gi lbert and
ery-school programs at the
new vocabulary to classmates.
Stacy Sall en say the
temple.
They were, in a word, in-
compute r makes
And as rapidly as students
volved.
Hebrew a breeze.
— and increasingly, parents —
Brian Barbas, 11, eyes glued
are accessing the media center,
to his monitor, bluntly sum-
the center itself is moving for-
marized the advantages of
ward.
computer technology:
Alyssa Sadler, the center's director, re-
"Teachers just blab on and on and on
and you get tired of what they are say- mains busy acquiring more programs.
ing," Brian said. "Here," he said, point- And when programs on a given subject
ing at the computer screen, "you are just are not available, she rolls up her sleeves
and writes them herself.
doing it."
The center is now interactive with sev-
David Lepsetz, 12, Brian's partner at
the computer station, nodded knowing- eral classrooms at Temple Israel, which
have their own computers and television
ly.
David said the voice on the computer monitors. Recently, the center gained In-
ternet capabilities. In the future, Ms.
Sadler hopes that users will be able to ac-
cess the media center from their home
personal computers.
School administrators and librarians
from across the United States and Cana-
da have called upon Temple Israel to help
them set up their own computer net-
works.
Ms. Sadler's aggressive stewardship
is already paying dividends — not just
in the students' enthusiasm, but in
their work. Ms. Sadler showed off one
boy's computer-generated report on mezu-
zot , which had pictures, words and mu-
sic, and even included a whimsical
reference to the television show "Sein-
feld."
And teachers were astounded by the
effect the center had on students diag-
nosed as having attention deficit hyper-
activity disorder.
"These kids were bouncing off the wall
in the classroom, but when we bring them
in here you would never know (they had)
it," Ms. Sadler said. "They are focused be-
cause they are in control of this particu-
lar learning environment. It is just
amazing."
ew of the American Jews stepping
off El Al flight No. 18 into the
warm spring breeze on the tarmac
at Ben-Gurion Airport did so for
the first time.
These Jewish community leaders
have family and friends in the Jewish
state — some even have second resi-
dences there. Many had not only been
to Israel within the last few months but
could recall other moments of crisis they
witnessed firsthand there, some as far
back as the Yom Kippur War.
"When I arrived in October, I watched
(Yitzhak) Rabin get off the El Al flight,
and walk down the red carpet to meet
(Shimon) Peres," Ellen Kaplan of Green-
wich, Conn., said, wiping the tears from
her eyes. "I was in Tel Aviv the night he
was assassinated."
On this day, there was joy at being in
Israel, no matter the circumstances, and
sadness about the recent wave of terror
that prompted this United Jewish Ap-
peals mission.
"Am Echad" read the banner behind
the podium for this first of many photo
opportunities, in which Richard Wexler,
the UJA's chair-elect, announced the
trip's purpose "to show that we care, that
we identify ... to express our deepest com-
mitment, to demonstrate once again the
partnership of the Jewish people."
With two television news crews and
other journalists and photographers in
tow, the 125 American Jewish lay lead-
ers and rabbis planned, in less than 48
hours, to go to the sights of the recent
bombings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and
to Rabin Square, where the late prime
minister was assassinated. They also
would hear from the mayors of the two
cities and from Israel's chief rabbi and
foreign minister, and would meet with
a group of Israeli high school students
and the parents of Nachshon Waxman,
the Israeli soldier who was abducted and
assassinated last fall by the military arm
of Hamas.
But the discomfort of any shiva call
— What is appropriate? What do we
say? — coupled with the conspicuous-
ness of this show of "solidarity" laid bare
the enigmatic relationship between Is-
raeli and American Jews.
In a scathing column in the Jerusalem
Post on the Sunday before the group
touched down, David Forman, the
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