The fourth-graders are perplexed. If Tel Aviv turns 100 this year, then … that means it’s older than the state of Israel?
“I call it the startup of the Jewish state,” jokes Vavi Taron, an education consultant. The Israeli woman created Tel Aviv Exploration, an interactive, multimedia exhibit that this spring is traveling to schools around the Bay Area, introducing students to the vivid, rich cultural landscape of Tel Aviv’s past and present.
The exhibit provides a forum for day school and congregational students to see, hear and touch Tel Aviv’s long history and vibrant development. It’s been on tour since January; by the end of May, it will have visited 14 day and Hebrew schools from San Francisco to Walnut Creek, from San Rafael to Los Gatos.
Taron was commissioned to create the exhibit by the Israel Education Initiative, a project of the S.F.-based Israel Center and Bureau of Jewish Education.
On April 3 at Brandeis Hillel Day School, fourth-grade students rotated through five stations. Each station represents a walking route modeled after actual walking routes in Tel Aviv.
They explored the city through historic and contemporary sources that included maps, art, photographs, artifacts, historic and contemporary stories of the city’s residents, music, video clips and comics.
Brandeis’ fifth-, sixth- and eighth-grade teachers have requested time with the traveling exhibit. Zahava Dahan, director of Judaic studies at Brandeis, wants to extend the exhibit’s stay at her school to accommodate all the interested teachers — but is not certain she’ll be granted an extension, since there is a waiting list of schools looking to borrow the exhibit.
“It’s amazing to explore the founding of Tel Aviv,” she said. “It’s been a big success for us. There is something for every learner — and [students] are connecting today to the past.”
They learned about topics as varied as the first mayor of Tel Aviv, the orange orchards that initially made Tel Aviv famous, the beach culture that pervades the city and even the busy shops of Shenkin Street, where it’s not uncommon to see a rabbi teaching someone how to put on tefillin in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Cars are going by, and this man is laying tefillin. Do you see this in San Francisco?” Brandeis teacher Sharona Israeli asked her fourth-grade class while they watched a video.
“It’s so crowded,” said one student, awed by the congested sidewalks of Tel Aviv’s shuk and shopping district.
“Well, Israel is very small, no?” Israeli said.
On April 3, after viewing a contemporary music video by Israeli rap singers, the fourth-graders could barely contain their excitement for Israel’s most modern city. They begged to hear the video again.
This time, they got up and danced around, giggling and singing along to the Hebrew lyrics.
“So Israel has rap, right?” Israeli said. “It’s not all camels.”