ISRAEL IN JEWISH EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
by Ruth Pinkenson Feldman and Shira Ackerman Simchovitch

For thousands of years without the benefit of modern technology, Jews managed to create powerful images and representations of Israel - a place that most Jews had never seen or experienced. A Jewish child was born into a relationship with the "Israel of the imagination" that was fostered by linking that place to everyday actions and rituals, to significant events in the flow of the year and of life, and to communal myths and memories. Israel thus permeated the lives of Jews, visited and revisited in the mind throughout the course of a lifetime. When such images of Israel were vivid in the hearts and minds of parents, a connection to Israel could be transmitted at an early stage and in a natural way to young children. Now, that such images have become less and less a part of most parents' reality, educators are called upon to make up the difference at the crucial developmental stage of early childhood.

It is said of our most sacred text, the Torah, haphoch ba ve haphoch ba, de kuli alma ba - turn it and turn it, for all the world is in it. The same can be said of Israel, the land, the people and the story. The diversity and ever changing nature of the reality that is Israel, coupled with the multiplicity of interpretation of that reality, make the task of determining what to teach young children about Israel and in what manner to teach not only difficult, but tremendously challenging.

What does Israel mean today and what has it meant to different people at different times? What can it mean to young children? What do we want it to mean? How can learning about Israel promote a child's Jewish development? What role can Israel play in the Jewish identity formation of the young child? How do we shape the young child's engagement with the topic of Israel so that meaning and relationship can be constructed? What is the teacher's role in the child's construction of meaning about Israel? What is the family's role?

In the framework of this guide we will discuss the reality of Israel education in pre- primary settings in North America today and the influences that shape this reality; some of the problematic issues for teachers in the construction of Israel experiences for young children; the child-family-teacher interaction in Israel education; the transformative power of the Israel Experience (an educational visit to Israel) for the early childhood educator; and our responses to these issues.

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INTRODUCING PRESCHOOL CHILDREN to ISRAEL
An article by Randi Fox Tabb (Rochester, NY, January 1998)

In Randi Fox Tabb's article, she discusses practical ways to bring Israel alive in the early childhood classrom. She suggests hands-on activities for bringing a country so abstract and distant into the lives of young children (from art centers, books and stories, food, language, stories, holidays,to museums, archaeological digs, and maps). Her ideas awaken children's senses in the Israel experience and enhances feelings about their connection to and responsibility for the Jewish State of Israel.

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