WEB EDITOR'S NOTE: Several classes in Zefat are participating in 
Through Our Eyes.  Their introductions are all posted below.

October 28, 1997

SHALOM TO EVERYBODY FROM US IN ISRAEL!

We live in the North of Israel in a town called Zefat.  We are 15 and 16
years old and in the 10th grade.  Our school is called Amit Ulpanit High
School.  It is a religious Jewish girls-only school.  We don't wear
uniforms.  We wear long skirts and sleeved shirts in school and outside of
school, too.

Because we are religious Jews, we keep a strict Sabbath ("Shabbat" in
Hebrew).  That means that we don't drive, work, or watch TV.  We don't start
or extinguish a fire or electricity (we use timers).  Don't think that we
are not having fun on our Shabbat, which is on Saturday.  It is quiet and
peaceful, but not boring.  Imagine a day with no cars on the road, all the
stores closed, and people walking together, wearing beautiful clothes and
singing Sabbath songs.

In the morning, we go to synagogue to pray.  We go everyday, but on Shabbat
it is more special.  We have 3 festive meals with the whole family together,
with guests and a lot of singing.  Some kids go to B'nai Akiva, a youth
group, in the afternoon.  We have more interesting things about Shabbat and
our religion, but we can't tell it all to you  right now in this introduction.

We invite you to come and visit us and write to us.  G-d bless you.

L'HEETRAHOT (Until we see you),
Us
****************************************************************************
Also from this class, Vered P. wanted to write her own letter of introduction:

B"H
Hello to Everybody Who Is Reading This Letter,

I live in the North of Israel in Alma.  I am 15 years old.  My school is
called Amit and we have just girls in our school.  We learn so many
subjects:  English, Mathematics, Hebrew, Science...and it is very, very,
VERY difficult.

I want to correspond with whomever wants to write about their life, their
school, and how it is in their country.

I hope to hear from you,
Vered P.

**************************************************************************
October 31, 1997

Second Introduction.
Same school, different class.

Shalom!

We are an 8th grade girls' class at Amit Ulpanit (High School) in Tzfat*,
Israel.  There are 17 girls in our English group and 33 girls in our class.

We speak pretty good English.  Our teacher speaks Hebrew about as well as we
speak English.  We like music.  All of us like English music and some of us
like Israeli music.  We have some pretty good bands here, like Hi 5 and
Shabbak Samech.  We like famous models that you might know, like Sandy Bar
and Shiraz Tal.

Here in Israel we play mostly soccer.  We call it "football" but it's not
the same sport as American football. Our best teams are Macabee Tel Aviv and
Betar Jerusalem.

80% of those who watch TV in Israel watch "The Bold and The Beautiful".  Do
you watch this soap opera?  Is so, where are you in the program?

Our town, Tzfat, is very small, but it is the highest mountain town in
Israel--800 meters above sea level.  We don't have a mall.  People visit
Tzfat because it is beautiful.  They visit the gravesites of holy Jewish
leaders.  Also, once a year we have The Klezmer Music Festival in Tzfat and
people pour in from all over Israel and other countries.

Thanks for the letters that you sent us.  We enjoyed reading them and we'll
see you soon.

Bye,
KEETA HET (8th Grade) AMIT ULPANIT

P.S.
*Tzfat, Safed, Zefat, Zfed, and many, many other spellings--it's all the
same town.  The reason is that the Hebrew spelling begins with a letter
"tzaddik", which sounds like a combination of a "tz", sometimes slurred to
be just a "z", or heard as an "s".  It's impossible to translate precisely
to the ABC's.  Each class voted on how they wanted to spell it in English,
and so you'll see a variety of spellings of our town's name.

******************************************************************************************


3rd and last introduction.
Same school, different campus.
Same town, and yet another spelling of our town's name.
**************

November 3, 1997

Hi, how are you?  We live in Israel and we go to school in Safet.  We have a
beautiful mountaintop town in the Galilee.  Safet has a charming, romantic
Old City and an artist colony.  Our town is almost all Jewish, and about
half of the town is religious.

We live near Lebanon.  The relationship is not good.  Soldiers are dying and
we can hear the bombs sometimes.  Helicopters often bring some of the
wounded soldiers to our hospital in Safet.  But here, we are safe on the
streets.  We don't have a lot of criminals.  Women can walk alone at night
and small children walk to school alone and play on the playgrounds safely.

We go to Amit Makeef (Junior High and High) School.  We are an 8th grade
class of girls. Our school has boys and girls on the same campus, but not in
the same classrooms together.  The Ulpanit campus is more religious than
ours.  They have separate campuses for boys and for girls.  At our school we
wear long skirts but after school most of us wear slacks.  We study English,
math, history, geography, science, Hebrew, Hebrew literature, Tenach (our
holy books) and sports.  We have a break after every two classes.  We go to
school 6 days a week, 7 hours a day, and we are off on Shabbat (Saturday).

We hope that you will visit us in Israel.  See you soon.

Goodbye,
Grade 8 Amit Makeef School
************************************************************************************

Introduction  from Chana Besser, Teacher

For those who don't know us from last year, we are from Amit, and I teach
in the girls' campus.  All of my students and I are Torah Observant Jews, 
commonly called Orthodox Jews.  Our school is a state public Zionist 
Jewish religious Israeli school. (As I said last time, we have lots of 
choices here.)

A few of my students are immigrants, like me.  We represent the 0 generation
group--for this century--although many of our ancestors lived here 2,000
years ago for somewhere between 500-700 years.

Back to the present:  I think my 9th (or was it 11th?) generation student is
the longest in The Holy Land, and the average seems to be 2nd
generation--that about takes us back to the most recent statehood of the
modern State of Israel.  But I have a good percentage of 5th thru 7th
generation students, too.

I have 2 Ethiopians (each came here herself with her family during the
Ethiopian Airlift and recounts her story--they are exceptional storytellers,
as some of you might remember from last year's Ethiopian Hero essay by 
Vered).

I also have 2 Americans who have been in Israel 1 year and 3 years
respectively. 
A third girl has a father from England, and another girl lived for a year in
Boston.  That about sums up my American/English sector--much more than I had
in my classes last year.

Two girls have a holocaust heritage from Poland, like me (one is an
American).  The other side of one of their families is from an Arabic
country.  This year, it seems like those who have Eastern European/Baltic
Jewish or Russian Jewish ancestry on one side, also have Mideastern Jewish
ancestry on the other side, most often Tunisian or Morrocan.  It makes for
some interesting cooking at home.

I have less students this year from Persia (Iraq).  A few came up from Tunis
or Morocco via a few years or generations in France, and one student speaks
French at home.  Many of the parents speak French, especially the Morrocans
and Tunisians.  Others speak Arabic (the parents, not my students).

Our spelling list of requested city/country names included:  Casablanca,
Persia, Tunis, Morocco (very popular), Eqypt, Poland, Kurdistan, Kenya,
Ethiopia, Russia, Romania, and some places that I had never heard of.  The
essays are full of great stories--adventure, pathos, humor, valor,
integrity, and above all, an undying, unquenchable, inextinguishable love to
return to Israel, no matter what the danger or the sacrifice.  Did you know
that a religious Jew mentions Israel (Jerusalem, Zion, etc) at least 100
times a day in their prayers?  One girl wrote that when her parents
(grandparents?) arrived in Israel, they kissed the ground.

A Happy New Year for all the Jewish members of Kidlinks throughout the
world.  May you be written and inscribed for a healthy year with plentiful
blessings of sustenance, peace in the family, and joyful service of our
Creator's will.  Same blessing for everybody else, regardless of your
holiday schedule.

Chana in Safed

Return to PARTICIPATING SCHOOLS Page

Return to KIDPROJ Home Page