metro >> around town Making Bread T emple Israel's IMAGINE Young Adult Group gathered for a challah-baking workshop at Dakota Bread in West Bloomfield recently. Young adults learned the basics of challah baking, while kneading, rolling out and braiding the dough. Lori Semel and Cheryl Spektor, both of West Bloomfield Rabbi Jennifer Kaluzny led a study session on the history of challah baking and its significance on the Shabbat table. Each participant was able to pick up a challah they made personally on Friday morning – just in time to celebrate Shabbat with their families. Laura Markle of Royal Oak, Jessica Migliore of West Beth Fienman of Farmington Hills and Binay Manche( of Bloomfield and Can Fayne of Birmingham in Dakota West Bloomfield Bread New Year At Hillel School-wide efforts help students prepare to celebrate the High Holidays. encils, notebooks, Smart Boards, apples and — shofars! That's what's been happen- ing at Hillel Day School recently as students get back into their routines and prepare for Rosh Hashanah. Hind's youngest learners in the Early Childhood Center have been enjoying the symbols and fruits of the New Year by creating beautiful plates for apples and honey (representing a fresh new beginning and sweetness for the cycle of their Jewish lives), shofars and counting and cooking with apples. For elementary students, authentic learning came alive with challah baking and a visit from Rabbi Shneur Silberberg of the Bais Chabad Torah Center, who showed first-graders how shofars are actu- ally created — thankfully using a fake ram. The sound of the shofar could be heard throughout the hallways surrounding the music classrooms as chil- dren attempted to blow the shofar themselves with encouragement from their classmates. Heartwarming messages for "health','"peace,'"a cure for diabetes" and "wanting to read better" are just a few wishes to be found in apple baskets hang- ing outside of a second-grade classroom. Students at the Frankel School in Jerusalem, Hillel's sister school, will be enjoying Rosh Hashanah cards from their third-grade counterparts. Rosh Hashanah lessons are integrated into the fourth-grade language arts unit "Challenges',' as children discuss and write about the challenge of asking others for forgiveness, embodying what Jews customarily do during the 10-day period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The children are able to apply the values and les- sons learned to their own lives as they contemplate their wishes for a new beginning and how their actions impact the world around them. 34 October 6 • 2011 aN Hillel Day School first-graders learned how shofars come from a ram's horns. Rebecca Rabin of Royal Oak and Talia Rotberg of Bloomfield Hills check ECC student Jonah Zekman of Franklin out their Rosh Hashanah books. dips his apple into honey.