Sofia Efremova (St. Petersburg)

Published in "The New Jewish school" #7/2000

National upbringing means transferring the tradition from father to son, from generation to generation. Children accept everything they hear at lessons with great interest. And it is quite natural that having received any new knowledge at the kindergarten, they desire to share it with their parents. And it appears that all this is even newer for the parents than it is for the children. And that is why Jewish kindergarten appears to be the same educational establishment for them as it is for their children.

Parents used to come to us and say: “Oh, it's just thanks to my son or daughter that I've learnt it is Jewish New Year tomorrow”. But such an “extramural” form of education was definitely not satisfying. To improve the parents' knowledge, we decided to organise a “Sunday school for the parents” and for this purpose made necessary arrangements with lecturers from Petersburg Jewish University and with the Society of Jewish culture.

Parents started to come to the kindergarten at every Sunday noon. Those who couldn't leave children at home came with them. While parents were studying, children were playing.

The topics of the lessons were quite different: lectures on Jewish history and holidays, how to celebrate Shabbath, etc. There was a “cooking seminar” named “Granny's receipts”, at which moms, grannies and even dads shared their experience in making Jewish national dishes. Many of them brought the cooked dishes to make a big family event.

Together, we discussed current issues of the “Lekhaim” magazine: “How to serve the table for the Passover”, “How to make a carnival dress for Purim”. At lessons we showed parents interesting technique of teaching children used in Israel kindergartens, told them about the rules of kashruth. The parents showed a great interest towards these lessons. We saw that common interests united them. We felt that the parents needed more time to talk to each other and the moments when they brought their kids to the kindergarten or took them back home were not enough for them. Step by step many parents became more and more friendly, started visiting each other. We proposed to organise a “women club”. Once or twice a month moms of our children gathered at somebody's home and shared the urgent problems connected with upbringing of their children.

The parents and the children meet together to celebrate Shabbath observing the traditional rules. We organised a Jewish musical concert at our kindergarten. Two moms: Sonya's (a violin player) and Ira's (a piano player) performed in it. Everybody enjoyed the concert very much. Parents came dressed up as if they came to a theatre. Many of them were with their children. They listened to the music by Jewish composers and sang Jewish songs together. It was a real holiday.

The parents helped us to organise visiting the synagogue with the children because the religious upbringing is an integral part of the national upbringing.

Very interesting was the discussion on the topic “Jews in arts” about the creative work of Marshak (Soviet children poet and translator), Bernes, Utesov (Soviet pop singers), Raikin( Soviet actor) and other famous artists and writers.

Passover Seder was a great event in the life of our kindergarten. All the parents together with their children gathered in the premises of Jewish canteen (it was the charity canteen for elderly Jews). The Seder was led by rabbi Pevzner. Here everybody experienced the feeling of participation to the national tradition.

I'd like to mark another form of work with the parents: distribution of popular Jewish literature among them. The literature is given to us by Petersburg Jewish community, the Joint, as well as by the “Lekhaim” magazine editing board. The parents find the literature interesting and lend the books and magazines to their relatives and friends.

Then the parents started to take an active part in the life of our kindergarten. For the holiday of Sukkoth, parents helped to build a Sukka. Together with their parents, children sang songs and had their meals in it as it is usually done on Sukkoth.

We organised a visit to the synagogue where the children were shown and told how Passover matzos is prepared. The children were given a possibility to make matzos with their own hands. Then children told how they cook matzos and Shabbath chalas with their moms and grannies. Many began to celebrate holidays at home, to burn candles for Shabbaths and on Chanukah.

But, of course, the brightest and the most interesting form of work with the adults are children holidays. Both children and parents look forward for them.

Parents take the most active part in preparation for the holidays. They sew children's masquerade costumes, help children to make the holiday attributes and decorate halls together with them. Parents participate also in the holiday celebration: they take part in dancing, perform together with the children in the plays. Almost all the holidays finish with tea party around the table. On Purim we had a victorina. Two teams: parents' and children's compete on who know more about the history of the holiday and traditions connected with it. The parents shouted for their “parents'” team as the children – for their “children's” one. As the result, the two teams gained the same score and this fact pleased everybody.

Jews have a custom to help the poor, to give donations as acts of kindness. We in our kindergarten have a moneybox. Parents give their children coins and children put them into the moneybox. Money gathered this way is used for the needs of the kindergarten and for supporting low-income families.

We also have a “Tree of good and bad actions” in our kindergarten. Parents write about good and not so good actions of their children; we hang these messages on the tree and then read them together with children and discuss. This is a very good stimulus to become better.

In summer we hold a summer camp on the base of our kindergarten. And parents also don't forget about us. They helped to organise excursions to Peter-and-Paul Fortress and Ethnographical museum. A trip to Petrodvoretz was organised in a very interesting way. Together with parents we prepared many games, open-air attractions, held competitions like “Me, mom and dad is a sportive family”, in which children participated together with their parents. Almost all the year children recollect this nice time and share their impressions about it.

A friendly team of children and parents has been formed in the process of work. We constantly hear from the parents: “I come here as if I come home”. And this is the highest evaluation of our work. Our kindergarten is attended by the children from different areas of the city. For many of them commute takes up to 3 hours. But they still don't leave us.