Friday, June 25, 2010

Brooklyn's Hebrew charter school gets its five minutes



Props to alert reader [name on request] for sending in the article from yesterdays evil, Jew-hating New York Times, about Hebrew Language Academy, a charter school in Brooklyn where students learn Hebrew and Israeli culture. Ready for a surprise, though? HLA is "one of the most racially mixed charter schools in the city. About a third of the 150 students are black, and several are Hispanic."

And of course those clever pin heads at the Times just could not resist having a little fun with our presumed expectations. Here are the opening paragraphs:

Every so often, Aalim Moody, 5, and his twin sister, Aalima, break into a kind of secret code, chatting in a language their father does not understand.

Ask Aalim his favorite song and he will happily belt out:

“Eretz Yisrael sheli yaffa v’gam porachat!” — My land of Israel is beautiful and blossoming! — and then he continues in Hebrew:

Who built it and who cultivated it?

All of us together!

I built a house in the land of Israel.

So now I have a land and I have a house in the land of Israel!

Aalim and Aalima are not Jewish. They worship at a mosque affiliated with the Nation of Islam. But at the Hebrew Language Academy, they fit right in.

Haha, you can almost hear the writer laugh to himself. Fooled you!

Lame journalistic attempts at irony aside, I think its great that kids with kippot are going to school with Black Muslims. Both will grow up with a better understanding and a fuller tolerance of each other, which is all to the good.




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