Shira Rosenak ’10

Posted on December 15, 2023

My name is Shira Rosenak, a Bronfman Fellow from 2010. I appreciate the opportunity to write a little bit and share what is going on in these times.

October 7th shook our very foundations. Banal terms received a new, frightening, threatening meaning: Home. Family. Holiday. Morning. A heavy shadow hovers over everything. Not just terms relating to our personal lives; also communal terms also lost their familiar meaning in this earthquake: Leadership. Army. Education. The breakdown of our public sector led to the flowering of civil initiatives, and I was blessed with the opportunity to be part of one of them.

In normal times, I am the Youth Coordinator at Beit Avi Chai in Jerusalem. Our main work is in experiential-cultural education, which draws inspiration from the treasure trove of Jewish-Israeli culture. One week after October 7th, when Jerusalem was in the process of absorbing thousands of teenagers without a sufficient educational response, the educational staff at Beit Avi Chai welcomed teenagers staying at the hotel across the street to a learning center that was set up in the building. The learning center began as a place to take a break, to breathe and gain strength, and slowly turned into a school framework, with the Ministry of Education now involved in managing the school. School days include lessons from the highest quality teachers (experienced staff, some of whom are retirees who were called upon to return to teaching in a reality where many teachers have been enlisted, and there is a very serious shortage of teachers), as well as experiential workshops led by Beit Avi Chai (carpentry, karate, baking, art, theater – spaces for creativity, for physical work, and for multi-disciplinary expression). Around 40 teenagers, who were evacuated from the communities around Gaza almost two months ago, come to this learning center each day for four hours that are a break from the hotel and the intensity of life crowded into rooms without privacy.

Learning together, the personal relationship to each student, the experiential break times that give space for personal expression – all of these enable the teenagers to have a little stability in the midst of an unstable reality. The students who come here were not integrated into the Jerusalem educational frameworks for a variety of reasons. I feel like we are in a bit of an educational laboratory, establishing a school that is adapted precisely to the characteristics of a shifting reality with all of its challenges:

How is it possible to encourage routine learning during this time of unbearable loss of friends and family and classmates who are hostages in Gaza?

How do we relate to expressions of control and power from students who have lost control of their lives?

How do we relate to smartphones in a class of teenagers for whom a smartphone represents existential security, because smartphones warn them of the need to go to a safe room within seconds?

How do we bring parents back into the educational picture of their children, in situations where the parents have lost their livelihood, their homes, and their families, when living at a hotel, without home or stability, often leads to the breakdown of parental authority?

The teenagers who come here are amazing. They are brave and love life, and they are restoring a sense of control and stability to their lives, taking advantage of any opening that reality allows them. It is a privilege to be part of a team working on this crucial task – creating a beneficial educational routine in a temporary reality.

A concluding note: Coincidentally (or perhaps not), in our team of volunteers there are another three Bronfmanim [alumni of The Bronfman Fellowship] – Ariella Green ’19, Shira Benbanji ’20, and Maayan Hayim Alexander ’22. The Bronfman togetherness shows up in an unexpected place. Our small community within this situation enables us to have a shared educational language and values and a different kind of togetherness. It is special for a random group of alumni from different years, who share a connection that is beyond age and cohort, to act together.