For this week's  lesson on American Jewish history, we took a deep dive into the events of October 7th, 1965. That moment in history, of course, was when Dodgers ace Sandy Koufax sat out game one of the world series, as October 7th was the first day of Yom Kippur.

The decision to sit out game one of the world series sent seismic shock-waves through the American Jewish community, as a non-Orthodox American Jew to with a famous American identity refused to give up his practice on Judaism on its holiest of days.  We also looked at events in our daily lives where we had to balance our Jewish and American identities, such as missing school to attend high holiday service or arguing at the dinner table. 

Koufax was a trailblazer to those who wanted to hold true to both  their religious and  secular lives;  American Jews could now ask themselves "If he did it, why cant I?"  Koufax also hand thrown out a challenge at American Jews who  had-  or were readying to eject their Jewishness in the name of their American identity; American Jews could now  be asked "If he did it, why won't you?"


This Sunday was our first look at Purim material for the year, and what better way to introduce the topic that with an essay from our good friend Tiffany B. Now of course, Tiffany's essays always leave a lot to be desired, especially within the realm of facts, and that is where our sixth graders come in to help. In groups, they went over Tiffany B's work, and earned points  for finding her mistakes and fixing them. At the end of the activity, the students tally up their corrections, and whoever has the most points gets inducted into the Sixth Grade Hall of Fame. This weeks Hall of Fame Inductee is Maxwell G,  who found 37 things wrong with Tiffany B's paper. Way to go Max!