Anyone who thinks Jewish preschool is no more than day care in a Jewish environment hasn’t been to one lately.
Teachers are often ambassadors who, by introducing children to Jewish practice, bring the tradition to the whole family.
But it isn’t easy.
For example, teachers have to be prepared for unexpected questions — ones that can catch them off guard and don’t have scripted answers. Like “What is God?” “Why don’t we celebrate Christmas?” or “Where do people go when they die?”
“It keeps us on our toes when the children ask us things like that,” said Susanne Goldman, director of Oakland’s Temple Sinai preschool. “Those are the kinds of questions that come up around that age. We have to think of basic answers quickly.”
Sometimes preschool teachers end up helping families get through a difficult period.
Last year, the fathers of two preschoolers at the Peninsula Jewish Community Center in Belmont died suddenly of heart attacks. Judy Garb, director of early childhood education and family services, worked with the families to create a memorial service that the children could understand and relate to. One of them took place at the preschool.
Under more normal circumstances, preschool teachers find themselves trying to make Jewish holidays, history, rituals and values understandable to the 2- to 5-year-old population.
“Learning ways to pare things down to the children’s level while still keeping the integrity of the history is a challenge,” said Garb, who oversees 250 preschoolers at three different sites — the Marin JCC, the PJCC and the Jewish Day School of the North Peninsula.
“We teach them through songs, food and games. We had a model seder with frogs everywhere. [The children made] floating Moseses. Our teachers are creative.”
Through such events, teachers often end up becoming students themselves, re-examining what they once learned or picking up new information.
“I forgot a lot,” said Evi Rachelson, who runs a full-time preschool at the MJCC in San Rafael and a once-a-month program at the adjacent Congregation Rodef Shalom. Although she was raised in an observant home in Switzerland, Rachelson drifted away from Judaism for several years.
Since Rachelson began teaching preschool she’s learned a lot — for example, that Moses means ‘taken out of the water.’
“As a teacher you learn all these things again. There is joy when I get a new Jewish fact,” Rachelson said.
Just as the teachers educate themselves and the children, they find that the children wind up educating their parents.
“Through the children [the parents] are coming back to Judaism themselves,” said Liz Jaroslow, preschool director at Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco.
Twice a month there’s a Saturday morning Shabbat service for preschoolers and their parents at the synagogue. The program, called Munchkins and Mishpacha, is open to all preschoolers whether or not they are affiliated with the synagogue.
“It’s a wonderful entry point for children and families,” Jaroslow said.
The preschools also offer parent education that includes pre-holiday handouts with information on home observances, as well as invitations to Shabbat, Pesach and Chanukah celebrations.
“The special part for me is imparting the Jewish values to the parents through the children,” said Garb, adding that 50 percent of her families are interfaith. “The best gift to me is when a parent tells me they lit the Shabbat or Chanukah candles for the first time.”
Rachelson has even gotten calls at home from non-Jewish parents asking her to recite the Shabbat blessings because their children insist on doing them at home.
“When the children get used to all the different customs we do at preschool, they want to do them at home,” said Goldman, whose 3-year-old son Sam wants the Haggadah read to him every night. Being a preschool director “has made my Judaism more real. I incorporate at home everything we’re teaching to the kids. It makes it an everyday experience for me.”
Perhaps the biggest joy for teachers comes when children make a connection with what being Jewish means.
“They realize that they are part of a culture with special rituals that they can all participate in together,” Jaroslow said. “Everything is so wonderful to them.”
And, of course, there is the sheer pleasure of being with preschoolers all day.
“I’m in it for the hugs,” Garb said.