This module aims to bring participants into an exploration of common ground with Haredim

Photo album

Screen the following photos, one after the other. (Copyright does not allow us to suggest printing them out). Allow each photo to stand for at least 60 seconds.

Ask the participants to write down one aspect of the photo with which they identify, and one aspect that they do not.

Quick sharing after each photo.

Bringing up the children

Hand out copies of the poem “The Children of the house of Study” by A. Margalit. 

Download printable copy from here.

A. Margalit is the pseudonym of Pnina Lichtenstein – a well-known and much loved Haredi female poet. Her poems are included in the curriculum at the Haredi Girls’ High school. A. Margalit was a literature teacher at the girls’ Haredi School “Beit Yaakov” for many years and has written curriculum in this subject. She lives today with her family in Jerusalem, she has self-published her book “Small Cloak”. She is in favor of censorship, and much aware of the educational content and values of her poetry and its influence on her mostly female readers.

1. (Have someone) read the poem out loud.

2. Before talking more, add the following: “This is a picture of an ideal childhood through the eyes of a Haredi poet. We’re going to read the poem again, and as you listen, try to imagine in what way does this ideal mesh with your ideals for childhood, in what way does it differ?”

3. Now (have someone) read the poem out loud again.

4. After the second reading, help people work out the references they didn’t catch. (See the list of footnotes immediately following the poem).

5. Have everyone share the image that most struck them.

6. Now return to the original question: To what extent is this an ideal childhood in your eyes?

The Children of the House of Study

By A. Margalit

Translation by Shlomit Naim-Naor

The childhood is walking down the sidewalk

With rosy lips and cheeks

It salutes your existence

As it is carrying a copy of the G`mara (1)

Under its armpit.

The childhood is walking. The feet

Are chasing after a dotted rusted old wheel

Suddenly the wind blows and pushes

And a soft hand gently taps the head

Ensuring the Kippah (2) won’t go with the wind.

The children are back from school

And the air is dotted with beauty marks

It`s dusk and dark the day has passed

But they are still bent over their studies, indeed

The thumb is digging in the air (3).

The childhood walks from here to there

Guard passes guard (4)

Tomorrow`s People of Israel

Marches in a smaller format

Only today its name is Tashbar*.

The childhood walks on the sidewalk

And everyone around is smiling,

Like an angel of innocence and blessing

Following close on the strides in silence.

The children are back from the house of study

In storm thunder and haste,

Before they enter home, on the doorstep,

Fingers placed on the Mezuzah. (5)

And childhood is on tiptoes:

So much taller is the mezuzah.

The lights go off. Tashbar* are going to sleep,

A dream is woven between pupil and eyelid,

A sweet endless dream.

About the starry sky

And about Joseph and his brothers

And about their Bar Mitzvah,

In only six years’ time.

* תינוקות של בית רבן   children of the house of study 

1. G’mara: A book of Talmud study 
2. Kippa: skullcap
3. Traditional studying gesture
4. These words have connotations of the army, and of religious observance
5. The small box with sacred text inside that rests on the doorframes of Jewish houses. It is tradition to touch it, and then to kiss one’s fingers.