e

Tales From The Annals
Of Hebrew School

Readers dust off the cobwebs
from their memories of religious school.

Beverly Apel, a
former Hillel
Day School
teacher:
"During the
1950s, my
younger broth-
er and I
attended
Ahavas Israel
Hebrew School
in Grand Rapids.
My family lived in
Lowell, a 30-minute
drive to Hebrew school, and
carpooled with a family in the
neighboring town.
"We made the trip twice a week
for two hours and on Sundays for
four hours. My brother had a prob-
lem with cramped quarters and
unusual smells. When he got into
the car with the four people already
there, he often would experience
motion sickness. Mother got him

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1998

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some medicine, but it didn't always
work.
"The other family kept kosher
and raised chickens. Often the live
chickens, in wire cages, were put
into the car trunk en route to the
shochet (ritual slaughterer).

Meanwhile, during the ride to
Hebrew school, the motion of the
car, the cramped quarters, some-
times the smell of fingernail polish
and the cackling foul-smelling fowl
did my brother in, and then the rest
of us had to contend with yet

another unpleas-
antry.
"All of this may
be funny, but I
truly did enjoy
Hebrew school,
especially
Sundays when
the teachers
were profes-
sional educa-
tors rather
than the lay
people who
attempted to teach
during the week. I had
a bat mitzvah, which
was unusual at a
Conservative synagogue in the
1950s, and joined.USY and Young
Judaea. My commitment to Judaism
and Zionism started in Hebrew
school and has remained a strong
influence on my adult life."

(