The Jewish Chronicle

JNF festival puts the play into Hebrew

Israeli theatre troupe demonstrat­es the fun side of learning Ivrit

- BY SIMON ROCKER

“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.

 ??  ?? Israel’s Orna Porat Theatre launches its school tour at Rimon Primary
Israel’s Orna Porat Theatre launches its school tour at Rimon Primary

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom