EDGEWATER — Dozens of students from religious schools of different faiths met at Chicago Jewish Day School Wednesday to learn about each other's personal and religious experiences, all while having fun and making friends.
The event, hosted by nonprofit group Poetry Pals, aimed to bring students and communities of different backgrounds together to help understand and appreciate one another.
“We are the only program in the country that is doing this work with elementary schoolers,” said Adam Shames, executive director of Poetry Pals, which organizes events in and around Chicago. “Kids this age are open to new ideas, and we see students years later that still remember the impact our program has had on them.”
Jewish students were joined by fourth grade kids from the Muslim Community Center Academy and Sacred Heart School, a Catholic institution.
After an introduction, kids broke into groups and were asked to sit between two students of different schools throughout the program.
As Day School staff member Tamar Cytryn told the story of Judaism, students sat wide-eyed and ready with questions from their rounded rows of chairs.
Catholic girls in green-plaid uniforms sat huddled with 10-year-old Muslim girls wearing hijabs to read from a Jewish prayer book.
Across the room, small boys wore silky decorated yarmulkes while nearby boys dressed in Muslim Community Center shirts giggled furiously with boys wearing khakis and tiny red ties.
Boys from Sacred Heart and Muslim Community Center Academy take in a Jewish prayer book for the first time. [DNAinfo/Linze Rice]
Later, students were able to read from a special Torah script that was found buried in the ground after World War II, beneath the deep red glow of the stained glass panels above.
The day's events culminated in a poem-performance writing session, in which diverse groups jot down facts about themselves, like family country of origin, favorite colors, favorite animals and more. The groups put their stories together to create a "We Are" poem meant to highlight and celebrate the commonalities and nuances between them.
"If you think about it, we really are all the people and places that we love," a Poetry Pals group leader said.
That theme was at the core of the Poetry Pals — and the schools.
Cytryn told students during her presentation of Judaism that the religion focuses on stories, values and rules designed to make good people who recognize injustice and treat others the way they want to be treated.
Those principles are easily applied to whatever faith non-Jewish students claimed, too, she said.
Mary Ann Ligon, head of third- through fifth-grade students at Sacred Heart, said fourth grade was the perfect age to get students of different religious backgrounds to mingle and see what life is like outside their own "bubble."
"It's really the perfect age, they're open-minded, have no preconceived notions," Ligon said.
The program also teaches kids to feel pride in their own upbringing, while becoming more comfortable, knowledgeable and understanding of others.
Evan Cohen, 10, who is a student at the Jewish school, said he can't read or write Hebrew, "but I can explain it."
For him, the experience has been great, he said. It makes him proud of Judaism when students from other schools and religions show interest in and ask about his beliefs.
Kids had fun rolling out, almost completely, a Torah scroll. [DNAinfo/Linze Rice]
He's also curious about other religions, he said.
Sacred Heart 10-year-old student Pierson Spender, who asked many questions Wednesday afternoon, felt the same way. He said the experience was somewhere "in the middle" of being scary and fun.
"It's a learning experience," he said, after some thought.
Razan Abdeljabar, a 10-year-old Muslim student, said she enjoyed learning about the celebrations, prayers and traditions of Judaism and hopes to make friends with people of different cultures.
It's become a tradition for students at Sacred Heart, with fourth-graders participating the past five years.
Susan Eggers, whose daughter Louise Goldman goes to Sacred Heart, said her older daughter had experienced Poetry Pals first, and Eggers encouraged her younger daughter to see for herself.
"It's a great opportunity to meet children of different faiths in a comfortable way, inspired by education and understanding," Eggers said. "It's really valuable throughout history, but particularly now."
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