One of the regular Mosaic ‘outside’ activities is the visit of local schools to find out “What is a Synagogue?” It is now part of the school curriculum to understand about religious practices in the local area, and we have been told by several head teachers that their visit to us is one of the highlights of their religious education programmes.
What do we do? The feedback from the children always includes how impressed they are with the scrolls and the ark, the fact that Hebrew is written from right to left and in such strange characters, what a fun religion it is with so many festivals and so much singing, and finally what delicious food! Now you can get a flavour of the sort of programme we provide.
The visit includes:
- Information about Shabbat and the ritual around Friday night and when appropriate, might also include information about the next Jewish festival
- Music, which includes the teaching of a selection of songs relating to the Jewish religion and related stories and customs
- Ritual, featuring the ark in the main synagogue from which we take and read from a scroll and provide explanations.
Quotes from some satisfied children:
- ‘The Torah is so beautiful with all the patterns and the breastplate. The macaroons were lovely too!’
- ‘The Shabbat table looked very nice. I really enjoyed the experience of Shabbat and listening to the prayers.’
- ‘Shalom. We really enjoyed the trip to the Synagogue. Looking at the Torah scrolls for real was very surprising.’
If you would like to become part of a small but very enthusiastic team who give so much pleasure to the 5 to 11 year-olds of our local schools, please contact us
If you represent a local school and would like to arrange a visit to Mosaic, please contact us for further information.