Holocaust Experience in Eighteen Hours?

Christian school wants to simulate Anne Frank’s hiding with sleepover
> Posted by Akilah Johnson on October 9, 2009 01:29 PM (Mentioned in Tablet Magazine online)

The eight-grade class at Bethany Christian School is having a co-ed sleepover. The goal is help students better understand Anne Frank, the Jewish girl made famous by the posthumous publication of the diary documenting her experiences hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.

Jennifer VanHekken, or Mrs. V as students know her, said her class has been studying "Anne Frank: Diary of Young Girl" and thought it would be a good idea for them to spend 18 hours together in her classroom.

So starting at 4:30 p.m. today, her 14 students will turn over their cell phones, iPods, laptops and other gadgets that must be plugged into the wall. They also can’t bring any snacks because they’ll be eating potatoes, bread, carrots, coffee and oatmeal — pretty much what Anne’s family ate during their two years in hiding.

The kids aren’t allowed to leave the room, other than bathroom breaks, until noon on Saturday. Boys and girls will be separated during sleep time.

“It is my desire that through this project, our students will better appreciate the difficulties faced by many Jews who were in hiding during WWII and have a fresh view of Anne Frank’s life,” Mrs. V said in a letter sent home to parents.

There are problems with this "Holocaust Experience," even though the exercise was a possibly well-meaning attempt to help students understand the Holocaust which ended the lives of over six million people during the 1930s until 1944.

Eighteen hours of deprivation for students in the twenty-first century may be difficult, but there are elements missing in this "experience." Unlike Anne Frank and others who experienced that dark period of history, even with food and technological deprivation, the students could realize that at the end of eighteen hours, they would be able to walk out of this experience and return to a normal life without the dehumanizing "processing" done at concentration camps, crowded conditions, illness, and the constant fear of death, uncertain times of restriction, abuse, separation (often permanent) from loved ones.

While I am fairly certain that the teacher meant in no way to minimize the suffering of those who endured dehumanizing conditions and terrifying experiences, I feel a better way to approach this would have been to have a survivor talk to the class. Granted, the survivors are slowly becoming few in number as the years pass, but they have the best way of discussing their experience with students and gauging what is age appropriate in the telling of their memories.

For months, like many Americans, I have heard all the arguing over Health Care Reform. Also like many Americans, I am lucky to be covered by medical insurance. Even though I knew there were those without coverage, I didn't think about it. In recent days, I am learning more about the thousands of people who have lost medical insurance for a variety of reasons, many related to employment loss, or denial of coverage due to a pre-existing condition.

I was reminded about how there has been a disconnect of human compassion when seeing the angry crowds shouting down others who are worried and want health care reform. I also have heard some say "Well, I have my coverage." Lucky them. Lucky me. But what about the others who sit for hours in public hospitals before being seen? What about those who put off health issues because they can't afford it. Or as I've also witnessed, can't get help for some issue because they go to a place that doesn't accept their insurance or medicaid?

Rewriting the Bible

I heard this item below on a recent news broadcast (I believe it was The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC.) Until then, I didn't know that such a rewriting of scripture was in the works.



Conservatives Find Bible Too Liberal
So they’ll write a new one

By Marissa Brostoff | 3:00 pm October 13, 2009

Conservapedia, the right-wing version of Wikipedia, has launched a project to eliminate what it considers liberal bias in modern versions of the Bible. Part of the problem is translators who throw around words like “comrade” and “labor,” according to Andrew Schlafly, the website’s founder (and son of anti-feminist crusader Phyllis Schlafly), and part of the problem is, well, some teachings of the Bible. An improved version, according to Schlafly’s guidelines, will not be “emasculated” or “dumbed down” as leading evangelical versions of the Scriptures apparently are, will “accept the logic of hell … as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil,” and, most amusingly, will “express free market parables”—which might be a stretch given that, as Stephen Colbert pointed out, “the meek shall inherit the earth” is most certainly a bunch of “liberal claptrap.”

The irony of the whole project, it seems to us, is that Schlafly is far from the first to politically reframe the Bible or other sacred texts—but that’s usually the province of liberals, because they’re not religious fundamentalists. It’s one thing to update a man-made text you believe is both valuable and problematic; changing the literal word of God to suit your political ends is quite a different story.

The Bible: Lost in Conservative Translation [Guardian]

http://www.ourjewishcommunity.org

Life, Interrupted.....

One problem with blogging...You can get burned out if you do too many too often--I have had three (including this one) running in the past year. So I took a break, and decided to pare down my blogging time. Hopefully, I'll be here more often. Life also got "in the way" with various changes occurring with my job, spirituality, and relationships.

In recent months, due to the email relationship I've maintained with a person I met several years ago, who was only in my area for a year, I have found a new spiritual road. Check out:

OurJewishCommunity.org

Rabbi Laura Baum (whose photo is above, that's not my photo) served as a rabbinical student with the Jewish community in my area. She has developed a wonderful website which is worth checking out, regardless of your religious background. It's multimedia, and as is the current phrase "Spirituality for the 21st Century."

Sunburn and Lunar Wonder

Forty years ago today I was a teenager spending a month-long vacation with my family in Florida. There were two things that made today etched forever in my memory: the first lunar landing and a case of sunburn I received from fall asleep on the beach.

Since the space program has fascinated me from its beginning, like millions of others of that time, I stayed up late to watch those grainy black and white images on a television relayed back to those marvelled by the wonder of it all, reported by Walter Cronkite who shared in that sense of wonder and astonishment. There were those who said (back on earth) that the whole thing was a stunt filmed on earth in either a sound studio in Hollywood or Death Valley. Fortunately, those "conspiracy" believers were in the minority.

I remember after the excitement of watching the lunar landing walks and bouncing by astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin, trying to sleep, but the sunburn and a historical milestone that seems so much nearer than forty years ago, keeping me up longer than I'd ever been awake in my life at that time.

I had hoped, like Stanley Kubrick, that by 2001, the world would have made greater strides in the space program, but such has not been the case. Perhaps one day, astronauts will venture out beond the moon, and I hope I am alive to see that event. Sunburn, however, is something I never wish to experience again

R.I.P. M.J.

I learned about the death of Michael Jackson when someone told me while I was chatting online with them the day the news broke (Actress Farrah Fawcett had died earlier that same day.) Like many people, I was in shock. Fawcett's death was sad but not unexpected given her long struggle with cancer. However, Jackson was an extremely gifted and talented individual, but a seemingly deeply troubled one as well (some labeled him "weird", others made less kind remarks to the press--even after his recent death--judgments that his soul has now gone to "Hell") and growing speculation about drug dependency is not a surprise.

Before the pedophilia issue, before controversy over his changing looks, I had enjoyed Michael Jackson's music back to the days of the Jackson 5 when I was a teenager. I enjoyed several of his songs in his later years as a solo performer. The song "Billie Jean" was not a favorite of mine beyond the televised "moonwalk" MJ revealed to the world at the televised Motown celebration, but that dance move impressed me. I wish he'd stopped his physical transformation after the release of the album "Thriller." The video of "Heal the World" can still move me to tears.

There would come the revelations (not surprising) that Joseph Jackson abused his sons to get them noticed by music companies at an early age. There is a long history of "stage parents" and it continues today in the form of baby or children beauty pageants and even over-hyped reality programs using the term "talent shows." All a disturbing trend for money and fame.

I'm going to remember Jackson for his talent, which also probably led to physical problems and as speculated, drug dependency. Toward the end of his life, Jackson had altered his appearance so much that he gone from a cute boy to a man obviously with too much money and not enough self-esteem. His music will live on as part of his legacy.