Weeks 18 and 19: Monday, January 7th – Friday, January 18th

Blogger Note: Because of the continuing rehearsals for the musical, the 8th grade blog will not include posts from Hebrew, Heritage, or Science. Please reach out to Andreaa, Ilana or Mike directly for any specific questions you have about those subjects. 

Humanities

ELA: Students are preparing for their performances of a scene from The Crucible. Students will be assessed on how well they bring their character to life and infuse the subtext of the larger themes of the play into their performances. They will also be asked to reflect on their performance and the choices they made as a performer.

Social Studies: Students are working on an essay in which they will argue whether or not the American Revolution was avoidable. They will take a position on the prompt based on their extensive reading of several primary source documents related to the Stamp Act, Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, and the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

Have a wonderful long weekend,

Michael

Judaic Studies

8th graders have started a new unit: looking at ethical issues discussed in Rabbinic Literature. We began by discussing our overall question — can studying a text influence your beliefs and behaviors? Is it possible that we will be changed by this unit? Ask your 8th grader what they would do if they found themselves lost in the desert with a bottle of water and a friend!

In addition, the 8th graders discussed issues raised by our performance of Peter Pan. We know that many works were written during times when people profoundly misunderstood and misrepresented race and gender. What should we do with books, plays, and movies that do not reflect what Rabbi Akiva says in Pirkei Avot: all human beings are made in the image of God/חָבִיב אָדָם שֶׁנִּבְרָא בְצֶלֶם? Is there a parallel to the way we deal with the sexist and homophobic parts of Torah? When J.M. Barrie wrote Peter Pan, he had little concept that he was representing white privilege, though he certainly was. Today we look at his work with different eyes. At Senesh, we changed the lyrics in some of the songs — switching Hebrew for the gibberish — so the Brave Girls are seen as speaking their own different language. Is this enough? Should we be performing Peter Pan?

Here are some of the 8th graders’ amazing reflections:

Nate: What should we do with some older texts, plays and other things that contain racism or sexism? One of these texts is the Torah, which at points is clearly sexist. I believe the best option is to continue reading and learning these texts, as some like Peter Pan may be great plays, despite having a little racism, but cutting out the parts that could be offensive. For example, in Peter Pan, at school, we are cutting out some words of the Ugh a Wug song. This is a good solution that lets us keep a major part of the play (Tiger Lily and the Brave Girls) but also avoid being offensive to some races. And at Hannah Senesh, we also try to change some of the things in the Torah to avoid sexism. In Birchot HaShachar, instead of saying thank you for not making me a woman, we say thank you for making me a man or woman. These type of solutions are the type we need to help put an end to racism and sexism, but still keep studying the Torah and acting out Peter Pan.

Miranda: The show Peter Pan was written a long time ago when it was all right to make comments that are sexist or racist. If the same show was written today, the songs sung, images shown, and language used by the characters would be unacceptable. Since the people putting on the show were so excited about performing Peter Pan, they were faced with the issue of what to do about the sexist or racist parts of the play. They decided to take the offensive made up words in Ugh-a-wug and replace them with Hebrew words about bravery and strength to represent the qualities of the brave girls.

Sam: I think that if the school truly saw that it was wrong to have the “Ugh A Wug” song in the Peter Pan play then they shouldn’t have chosen Peter Pan as the 8th grade play. According to an article by Heleigh Bostwick about copyright laws surrounding plays, you cannot change the lyrics to a song in a play. What the school is doing, simply put, is illegal. Of course there is an off chance that the school did get permission from the copyright holder to do so, but if they don’t have the rights to do so then they can get sued.

Meyer: Concessions should be made in regard to the norms of the era and place in which literature was composed; take Peter Pan as an example. J.M. Barrie authored this acclaimed piece in Victorian England, at a place and time in which the misrepresentation of Native Americans, as represented in Peter Pan, was not a deviation from the norm. In keeping with Rabbi Akiva’s teachings, I don’t believe that it is acceptable to retain said facets of Peter Pan with respect to the work’s heritage. Yes, Peter Pan has manifested itself as something of a historic text in recent years, but as Akiva once said, all humans are made in God’s image, and I believe that this takes precedence over the play’s historical fidelity, as the play exhibits some symptoms of cultural insensitivity. That said, it would make most sense to me to simply omit most racist elements of such works as opposed to disregarding this media entirely due to its inflammatory content.

Jacob: I think that we should still perform Peter Pan. There are so many different things that are racist and sexist that we still perform. I think that we can change the play to make it less racist and sexist but we should still put on the play. Changing the random words to Hebrew was enough to make the play not racist and fine to put on as a show.

Ben: Books like Of Mice and Men or Uncle Tom’s Cabin should be afforded protection from such censorship as literary classics with important messages, but Peter Pan has little to offer the people of the world in the ways of philosophical meaning. Thus, the modifications we’ve made in order to bring it into the 21st Century are acceptable. However, we approach this play and its offensive stereotypes all wrong. The way that we’ve come at this play is ridiculous, as we privileged whites swipe blindly with our saws, hacking away at racist and harmless alike, and leaving much of the racism undealt with. Rather than inserting Hebrew words that translate to nonsense, we should cut Ugh-A-Wug all together, along with the characters of the Brave Girls, whose dialect, dances, and actions all amount to a totally unfounded stereotype. We shouldn’t cut some of the words to Brave Girl Dance while leaving “itty bitty cheep cheep,” and keeping the offensive swaying dances that has been used so often to mock Native Americans and their proud culture. Just to make the plot work, we allow the character of Tiger Lily and her stilted, doltish vernacular. Our white privilege makes us blind to the true struggles of the Native American, and leaves us impotent to fight their battles. And it isn’t only with these terrifyingly prejudicial lines that we blindly attempt to cut. We keep Wendy and her sexist inability to do anything but “make pockets.” Every single woman in the play is dependent on men, with the Brave Girls in love with Peter and Wendy’s greatest ambition to “be a mother.” Rather than dealing with the horrible problem of prejudice in America, we only add to the growing mound of parasitic ignorance with our ill-advised alterations.

Asher: I think that we can look past the sexist and homophobic parts of the Torah and see a blueprint of Jewish history. The sexist parts of the Torah are just the norms that rub off on the holy text. If people back then were to hear that women and men are treated fairly they would be astonished. I think that we can look past the sexist and homophobic parts of the Torah and find a deeper meaning.

Isaac: I think that Peter Pan is extremely racist and an appalling choice as a play in this school. I especially think that it is not okay to bring this into our school because it is giving us a racist and prejudiced view of Native Americans. The Native American culture should not be made fun of. My family is from Puerto Rico and is from the Taino tribe. I think that it is very offensive to me and my family yet the school continues to run the play. It’s bad enough that Columbus comes and takes our land and kills our people. At least we should prevent people from ridiculing the culture that almost got us put out of existence. According to Rabbi Akiva, we should not have racism. Nor should we have people hating each other because of their background or the color of their skin. As great a world as this may be, Rabbi Akiva’s ideas are unrealistic. But we are in a Jewish private school and we are supposed to be safe from racism. This is showing me otherwise and that it is all right to target my family’s culture and family history. Anti-semitic comments are not to be tolerated but racist comments made against the culture that I descend from is fine. Substituting the Ugha-Wug song with Hebrew does not suffice. The intentions are the same though, as are the outfits and costumes that are put on.

Fayanne: The reality is that the majority of the plays that kids can perform have racist or sexist parts in them. However, I think that we should either perform more modern plays or plays with fewer problems. I also think we should still not be performing Peter Pan even after we changed the words. I don’t think there is a way to have Uga-Wug and other songs without being racist. In addition, a lot of other parts are just very unnerving and offensive. For example, why do all the girls who interact with Peter immediately fall in love with him and become jealous? All in all, I think that we should have chosen another show.

Zoey: By changing the lyrics to Hebrew in the song “Ugh A Wug,” we tried to make our production more ethical. I think this was a good idea. The story of Peter Pan was written many decades ago. The original song was very racist, so we changed that, but as long as we’re doing a production of Peter Pan, we can’t change it all. So, I think that as long as we understand a few things such as: this was written a long time ago, we don’t talk that way now, not all girls are into picnics and flowers and are obsessed with one boy, it’s okay to still have a production of Peter Pan.

Math

The 8th grade is busy rehearsing for the play but they’ve still been making time for math. 8Y is in the midst of mastering the graphing of both linear and quadratic equations while 8X is wrapping up simplifying and solving algebraic fractions. It’s been fun for both groups to realize how everything they’ve learned thus far not only relates from lesson to lesson but also in the real world. After their performances on January 23 and 24, the 8th grade will move forward in the realm of quadratic functions and their real world applications before heading into the world of Statistics. Until then, making sure they’re ready for opening night is the priority.

Break a leg, 8th grade!

Musical 

Rehearsals have continued as opening night rapidly approaches.  They can’t wait to perform for all of you next week because they all got to crow in front of an audience.