Museum of the Month

The brainchild of Mrs. Elise Wolf the high school general studies principal the Exhibit’s goal is to involve every student in a hands-on project that will bring some aspect of Yiddishkeit to life. The project was inaugurated in 1995 and has surpassed itself with each successive exhibition.

The research motivates the students to learn and research on their own. Although the Exhibit’s displays are focused on Judaic subjects the project is a cross-curricular experience. Math history and even science figure heavily into the students’ work as they research and construct each exhibit.

In this year’s exhibit open from December 25 to January 1 many students chose to portray historical events that occurred in their designated month — including film footage of Kristallnacht (Cheshvan) photographs of the Six Day War (Iyar) a prison diorama for the translation of the Torah by 70 Jewish sages (Teves) and a Holocaust display focusing on spiritual heroism during that period (Tammuz).

Math teacher Miriam Hadassah Wexler describes how a student “walked into my class with this giant snake.” It was made of foam and the student needed to figure out how many green pushpins she would need to cover the surface of the snake. It really required a more sophisticated Calculus II equation she says but she improvised by helping the student use some folded papers and string as well as an algebraic equation to calculate the area of the snake’s surface. The calculation yielded a high number and a steep price: “We realized it would cost $750 in pushpins ” says the student. That was a hefty price tag for a snake and the design was adjusted accordingly.