For Hebrew charter school kids, religion comes after school

[rug]

June 26, 2013, 5:15 pm

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (JTA) — It’s dismissal time at the Ben Gamla Hebrew-language charter school in this South Florida suburb, and kids wearing identical blue or white polo shirts with the school’s logo are pouring out of the building.

Some make their way to waiting buses, but about 150 students mill around for a few minutes before heading back to the classrooms. They are followed by Orthodox rabbis with dangling tzitzit fringes and black-velvet yarmulkes pushing carts laden with prayer books and snacks.

Within a few minutes, the kids are chanting morning prayers — even though it’s afternoon and until a few minutes earlier, the classrooms had belonged to a taxpayer-funded public school.

That’s because Ben Gamla’s lease on the building lapses at about 2:15 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. For the next two hours, the classrooms are taken over by a religious Jewish after-school program.

http://www.jta.org/2013/06/26/life-religion/for-hebrew-charter-school-kids-religion-comes-after-school

[cbayer]

1. They sure do seem to be walking a fine line here.

One of my kids went to a language immersion school and I am very supportive of that.

But, the murky lines between what is culturally Jewish and what is religiously Jewish just don't seem that clear here.