JNF festival puts the play into Hebrew
Israeli theatre troupe demonstrates the fun side of learning Ivrit
“WHAT’S THE Hebrew for queen’?, asked Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev. “Malkah,” chimed a chorus of children from Rimon Primary School in Golders Green, as the shagrir (that’s Ivrit for ambassador) explained how the once Australian Jewish schoolboy came to present his diplomatic credentials to Her Majesty.
Mr Regev was at Rimon on Monday to launch JNF UK’s inaugural Festival of Spoken Ivrit. But he was merely the warm-up act.
Star billing went to the Orna Porat company from Tel Aviv. Israel’s oldest repertory theatre for young people had been invited here to present two plays — for different age groups —as part of an educational initiative to encourage the learning of Ivrit.
The shows were intended to be more than “a stand-alone event”, said Ruth Wilkinson, co-ordinator of JNF UK’s new educational grants scheme, which over the next four years will distribute over a £1 million to 18 schools.
Ahead of the performances at ten Jewish primary schools, one secondary and an Israeli Sunday school, the intended audiences studied specially created educational material about the plays.
The children familiarised themselves with the story, the characters and learned some of the keywords in the dialogue. There was even a vocabulary list for parents to practise words with their children at home.
Each performance was tailored to a particular school’s level of Ivrit.
In preparations for the festival, Mrs Wilkinson said, “it came to light that Jewish primary schools differ greatly in their provision of teaching Ivrit.
“Lessons per week range from 30 minutes to three hours, with some schools teaching from the beginning of the foundation stage and others not teaching Ivrit until the children reach year two.
“Teachers often struggle to find resources that address the diverse needs of their pupils, especially where some pupils are from Ivrit-speaking families, and others are just at the beginning stages of reading and writing.”
Producing bespoke educational materials to prepare for the plays made the project “much more than entertainment,” she said. “This initiative will enrich the learning of Ivrit as a modern foreign language in our schools.”
Rimon’s children sat happily engaged for the 45-minute show, performed mostly in Hebrew with just the odd word of English to help. They might not have known every word — except for the 25 per cent from Hebrewspeaking families — but they had no problem keeping tracking of the plot or laughing at the jokes.
“The idea was for the festival to be a springboard for bringing Ivrit to life as a real living language, cementing links to Israel and their Jewish identity,” Mrs Wilkinson said.
From the reaction to the première, the project had got off to a flying start.