Dear Yehoshua:

Hope this email finds you well.

I want to let you know how successful this year’s project was. It was our best year ever! Students from your school and mine collaborated together on various science projects. Throughout the winter and spring months, students communicated by email and by phone.

However, the pinnacle part of the program was seeing the students meet face to face for the first time at the Shabbaton. Let me describe the setting for you: it is Erev Shabbat. The sun is setting at a camp in the woods of Massachusetts. One can hear the L’Cha Dodi being sung passionately by 130 children and 50 adults. All of a sudden, a bus pulls up with 26 Israeli students, Anat and Dalia. Sixteen SASSDS students, along with parents, Jane, and myself ran to meet them and instantly the connections that they had formed grew exponentially. They immediately clicked with one another. Throughout Shabbat, they sang, prayed, learned, ate, and played together as though they had been good friends for years.

Their connection grew when they came back to Sharon and went to my students' homes. For two exciting days, the kids were on a wild adventure. They went on a science vessel (on a very cold May day) and learned about crustaceans, algae, and the technology that boats use to navigate (GPS, fathometer, sonar, and radar). They saw the famous monuments of Boston – Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market, USS Constitution, and the Holocaust Memorial.

The morning of Tuesday evening's presentation, all 50 students collaborated putting together the PowerPoint presentations for their projects. What was beautiful was how well they worked together. They communicated fluidly, using Hebrew and English – all of them, from all academic levels, met the goal of experimenting, researching, and writing up the results.

The event Tuesday evening was a huge success. Two agencies, the Bureau of Jewish Education and CJP's Boston Haifa Connection (BHC), were represented. Karen Doryoseph from the BHC addressed the audience saying that tonight is the culmination of the project as both Irony Gimmel and SASSDS students will co-present their projects and it is because they have worked together and have spent time together that this was all possible. Students then presented their projects and answered questions posed by members of the audience. We also honored and recognized those students from both schools who had participated in the L’Chaim project – interviewing Holocaust survivors and how they triumphed over their horrible experiences in the Shoah.

Seeing the sad faces of all the children the morning after your Irony Gimmel students departed marked clearly the end of a phenomenal five days. From the moment they met at Camp Ramah to the last hug they gave their new Israeli friends, the students have had numerous positive experiences which they will never forget.

  
I want to compliment Pnina and her students on their successful completion of the project. While challenges occurred, they were able to meet the goal of presenting their projects.

Despite that the caliber of some of the projects may not have been what some of our students (both Irony Gimmel and SASSDS) are capable of doing, we need to realize that the reason is that we included students from all academic achievement levels. We want every student from Irony Gimmel’s 9th grade class and SASSDS’ 8th grade class to participate in the project. The goal is not that the students work on a science project together; the goal is that the students work and get to know one another and form connections with one another through science. That is a key difference. It's the bridging of the two groups and the formation of the connection that is the goal.

I do want to say that this is the first year where Pnina and my class has met the secondary goal that we have had for this annual project that began three years ago. The first year, due to communication issues, our students had a minor role in the project. The following year, students were able to collaborate more equally, but were stymied by the technological issues when the students attempted to create their presentations. This year, we were truly able to have students collaborate across the Atlantic, use their science skills and knowledge, and create a presentation that was presented at formal gathering. All the while, they learned about one another, their cultures, and their likes and dislikes. A parent from last year's class commented to me last night that this year's project and presentation was so much better and it seemed that the kids had formed such strong relationships with one another.

Yet, the primary goal of the project – having students from both schools bridge the gap and form connections with one another by learning, discovering, and researching science – has been met each year. As I mentioned last night, the belief that to teach a student to have a love for Israel, one must visit there has become a reality. This project helps make that reality occur here for every SASSDS and Irony Gimmel student. That is the goal.

This year, there is more excitement from the incoming 8th graders and their parents about the project. There is also a strong desire that our students come to Haifa to visit with you in addition to having your students visit them. Both Jane and I will work very hard to try to make this happen.

As I told Pnina recently, this year was the best year yet and each year it will get better and better. May the connection between our two schools continue to grow and foster.

B’Shalom,

Ariel Margolis