The Israeli culture club provides an opportunity for students to celebrate Jewish holidays and discuss issues relevant to Jewish people.
The club meets once a month in Hebrew teacher Irit Oberster’s classroom.
“We usually talk about different holidays that are coming up,” Senior Club President Sagiv Tirosh said. “[We discuss] how people are celebrating them in Israel and how people are celebrating them in the U.S.”
“If we’re meeting around the time of a Jewish holiday, there’s usually a conversation led by the leaders of the club about what people do on the holidays and some of the history behind them,” junior Jacob Tannenbaum said. “If there is recent news about the Jewish community or Israel, then we’ll talk about that.
Many students in the club know people affected by the war in Israel.
“We talked about the war in Israel in one of our meetings,” Tirosh said. “We brought the Shin Shinim (visitors from Israel) to talk about their experiences from the war and encouraged the people in the club to share what they thought about the situation. We also added a Rabbi to our group chat to help with the trip to the protest in D.C. and arranged a bus there.”
Shin Shinim are Israeli young people who have graduated high school and are in a gap year before serving in the military. They visit Jewish communities and share their experience as Israelis.
Israeli Culture Club also gives Jewish students an opportunity to talk about the recent increase antisemitic attacks around the world.
“I thindThe club is important at Beachwood because our school has a large number of Jewish people who want to get involved in the Jewish community
Some people may not be able to get involved outside of school, so this is a place for people to get together with the other Jews to learn about Israel, and celebrate holidays.
“The club connects us with each other through our traditions,” Tirosh said. “I think that the war going on right now in Israel brought the Jewish community in our school together and the club is raising awareness about it. It’s good to have a sense of your Jewish heritage even if you don’t experience it in your day to day life.”
