THE NWES CHEDER

Estelle Salomon, Headteacher

Our little Cheder continues to operate, although somewhat diminished having lost a few post Bar and Bat Mitzvah pupils and some others for geographical reasons. We have, however, gained two new pupils for the younger class, as well as the two who joined last year.

We are very fortunate to have a high ratio of teachers to pupils, including a reading assistant who hears the children read Hebrew on a one-to-one basis. Without doubt the reading skills are the most important tools to acquire and form the basis with which to build and develop Jewish knowledge. This cannot be emphasised too much and every encouragement should also be given at home for children to practise reading.

There have been a few small events of note. One was an outing to the annual Encounter Conference in November at the new JFS school in Kenton and at the adjacent Sinai School for the younger children where a full day’s fun activities and crafts were on offer including a packed lunch. The event, however, was not as well attended by the Cheder as I had hoped.

Another event was the United Synagogue’s Annual Prize Distribution on 26^th January at Bushey Synagogue at which our pupil, Sammy Talalay, received a prize for excellent knowledge and effort, together with pupils from all the major Chedarim in London. It was heart-warming to see our little Cheder represented at this ceremony. Let’s hope that next year we will be able to nominate two pupils.

The children of the Cheder also collected the respectable sum of £48 in the winter term for Jewish Child’s Day, a most worthy cause which helps underprivileged Jewish children world-wide. We received in return a most grateful letter and certificate which is displayed in the Cheder and the children each received an attractive bookmark. We had previously collected a lesser sum which was donated to Magen David Adom. The importance of giving tzedakah is regularly stressed to the children and each term we will collect for a different charity and the children will be told what the aims of that charity are.

On the Sunday following Tu B’Shvat we again planted a sapling in Rabbi and Mrs. Shisler’s garden. May their garden flourish with trees planted by the Cheder!! True to English weather at this time of the year it rained, so again thanks go to Mr. Mirwitch who acquired the sapling and helped dig up the soil!

We have also received a computer for the Cheder, through the generous donation of a shul member to whom we are very grateful and hope to buy some suitable programmes for use on it in the near future.

The Cheder has good facilities; large spacious classrooms and even one to spare so if you are reading this article and have children of school age with no formal Jewish education, please come along on any Sunday during term time and enrol your child. Our hours are 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. We look forward to seeing you.

I wish all members a happy and Kosher Pesach.