Being ‘left out’ prompted Tarbuton Hebrew-language program

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO–Perhaps county residents who want their children to become proficient in modern Hebrew should be thankful that young Jennie Lipowich  used to feel left out when her family traveled from Chicago to Israel to see her father’s family.   Her father and all her relatives would chatter away a mile a minute in Hebrew, and Jennie and her mother would look at each other, able only to understand a word or phrase here and there.

Later, when she asked her father why he hadn’t taught her Hebrew on his knee, he said it didn’t make sense to him to speak to her in a language that her mother couldn’t understand.  And besides, he said, he was so focused on earning a living and making his way in the United States, teaching Hebrew was the last thing on his mind.

Jennie grew up and married Stuart Starr, a fellow American, who had lived for enough years in Israel to serve in that country’s defense forces and to learn to speak Hebrew quite well.  Eventually, they  moved to San Diego, attracted by the weather, and had their first child, Dani.   Jennie Starr decided that she did not want her daughter ever to feel left out, the way she did, when they traveled to Israel.

So, Starr decided to attend a play group with Israeli mothers who chattered away in Hebrew, of which she still only understood a smattering.  But, she was convinced, her daughter was becoming acclimated to the language, and when it was time for her to learn it more formally, she would have a head start.  The more Starr listened to the Israeli mothers, the more she began to understand, although luckily some of the other mothers were patient enough to translate now and then for her.

By the time Dani was three, Starr felt the time had come for more formal arrangements. Rabbi Hirsch Piekarski of Chabad of Carmel Valley provided the space for two afternoon classes.  Marcia Tatz Wollner of the Agency for Jewish Education put Starr in touch with Orna McCann, an Israeli married to an American,  to teach.  McCann’s “passion was art,” Starr recalled. “She did a lot of art projects with her kids, and her background was Montessori, so there were lots of hands-on activities with the kids, projects that were tactile in nature.”

They also incorporated music into  their activities, including a well-known Hebrew song for children about how the color red let into the park the color blue and how they danced and twirled and twirled until they  became purple.  Children learned the names of other colors, and what would happen when they were mixed.  They also learned to name the parts of their bodies.

Their next teacher, Tsufit Abuhav, was “very much into music,” and incorporated portions of the program “Music Together” into the curriculum, Starr recalled.   Eventually, she moved back to Israel and opened up a “Music Together” franchise.  The second home of the program was provided by Brian Blachner, who had opened a children’s gym, since closed, called “Active Kids,” in the Carmel Valley area.

The program continued to grow, and Starr realized that it needed larger quarters still.  “We needed several classrooms at the same hour, and it was then that we went to Congregation Beth El,” Starr said.  “I will never forget my first meeting with Rabbi (Avi) Libman and Rabbi (Philip) Graubart because I came in armed with every argument that I could think of, why this would be worth their while, why they should consider taking us in, and before I could even open my mouth, Avi said to me … ‘Jenny we love what you are doing and we want to help.  What do you need?  I just about lost it in Rabbi Graubart’s office… It was so sweet and generous.”

Congregation Beth El provided the group, then known as the Israel Cultural Center, with classrooms for the growing program, which offered rotating classes at 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The Hebrew language class was taught by immersion, that is, no language other than Hebrew was spoken inside the classroom–similar to the ulpan process in Israel.  Another class, about Israel culture and Jewish holidays, was offered in English.

The name “Israel Cultural Center” proved to be impractical in San Diego County, where there already was an Israel Center at the offices of the United Jewish Federation (today called simply “The Jewish Federation”) and a House of Israel in Balboa Park, Starr said.

“We would have celebrations with 200 people coming at Beth  El, and people would call and say ‘we’re here at the House of Israel, where are you guys?’  Or ‘I called the Federation and you are not there.’  I said, ‘you know what? We’re making people crazy and making me crazy.’  I went to Israel that summer and I said, ‘I need a name for this thing.’ and one of my husband’s adopted sisters said ‘Tarbut! Tarbut!  Tarbuton!”

“Tarbut” is the Hebrew word for “culture,” and Tarbuton is a diminutive of that, similar in English to “a little culture.”

As cooperative and kind as Congregation Beth El was to the program, there were some problems of logistics, Starr said.  Parents who lived up in Carmel Valley and in Encinitas said it was too great a shlep to drive through the I-5, I-805 merge down to La Jolla and back.

So the Tarbuton began to decentralize, operating at one point at Beth El and at three other  locations, wherever there were enough parents willing and able to pay $20 an hour  per week over a 24 or 28 week period to pay for the teachers.

Eventually, Starr was able to make arrangements with two schools in the Del Mar School District and one in the Solana Beach District to rent classroom space immediately after the schools let out at 2:30 p.m.  The students simply moved from their homerooms to another classroom where a Tarbuton teacher awaited them, and got right into their studies.

Starr said she and other Tarbuton parents liked this arrangement because by holding the classes earlier they were dealing with students who had more energy than they had in the late afternoon .

But when the teachers have to be paid, and rental agreements must be fulfilled, costs go up — causing some families to express concern how expensive it is in San Diego to raise one’s children Jewish.

Starr said people need to compare costs to understand what a bargain Tarbuton actually is for those who want their children to learn Hebrew.  She said that day schools, such as San Diego Jewish Academy where Dani and  Starr’s young son, Guy, are both students, cost between $17,000 and $18,000 per student per year.  An average cost for a synagogue-affiliated Torah and Sunday school in San Diego County is $3,100 per year, including mandatory membership and school fees, she said.  Although SDJA and the synagogues offer other courses and activities , so that this is not comparing similar offerings,  the breakdown does provide some insight into the scale of each commitment.

With its continued expansion, Tarbuton has offered a variety of cultural offerings.  It has its own children’s dance troupe and choral group which perform at such Jewish venues as the Yom Ha’atzma’ut festival and the House of Israel.  There is also a coffee house night in Carmel Valley for adults to socialize and study together.

Last year, which was its seventh year, Tarbuton was selected by the Jewish Federation for an innovation grant, which Starr said enabled it to offer reductions in its fees, which was especially helpful for families with several children.

Starr is an attorney and a professional manager who volunteers her time to serve as director of the Tarbuton. She credited Larry Acheatel, executive director of the San Diego Jewish Academy, for helping her draft the successful proposal to Federation.

Among the students at the San Diego Jewish Academy are numerous members of the Latino Jewish community– mostly Mexican Jews–who created the Ken Jewish Community to help preserve their children’s Spanish language and knowledge of Mexican Jewish culture.

Starr asked the Ken Jewish Community’s  board of directors to consider providing space for Tarbuton, and the directors agreed.  Currently the Ken holds its functions in a rented upstairs portion of the San Diego Jewish Academy.  Tarbuton refers to its quarters there as its Carmel Valley Center

Now in its eighth year, Tarbuton recently announced that it had won approval for a second year innovation grant from the Jewish Federation, which will enable it to continue offering scholarships.

Additionally the organization announced that Maya Cohen will become its Training and Curriculum Coordinator, which will involve training teachers at the Carmel Valley Center and in the Del Mar and Solana Beach school districts, and at such other schools as may be added to the program.  With programs already at Sage  Canyon, Del Mar Heights and Solana Highland Elementary Schools, discussions are being conducted for offering similar after-school programs at Carmel Del Mar, Ocean Air, Ashley Falls, Torrey Hills and Carmel Creek Elementary Schools and at Solana Pacific Middle School.

While the programs today focus on affluent areas in coastal north county, Starr said Tarbuton is willing to establish program wherever there are enough parents willing to finance the cost of the teacher and quarters for the class to meet.  She said she has talked to parents in the North County Inland area, and  in the Del Cerro-San Carlos area, who are interested in creating such a program.

Tarbuton recently announced that Karin Leskly will serve in the position of Rakezet, or program manager. Leskly is credited with having launched “the community free Hebrew Story Time for pre-school children which includes the Sifiyat Pijama, PJ Library books and classic Israel literature.”  She also teaches Modern Hebrew at Solana Highlands Elementary School.

In another development, Iris Noiman was appointed to launch a Middle School program for 6th and 8th grade students.  Starr explained that “parents asked us to create this program to provide their children with strong Hebrew language instruction geared towards proficiency and to provide a cohort for their kids during these critical years with which they could celebrate their bar/bat mitzvah years and learn about Israel.  We’re working hand in hand with these parents to tailor the program to their needs.”

Starr has been collecting boxes and boxes of Hebrew language books, and is now developing a plan to create a special library to house them.

At a recent conference in Toronto, she said, there were presentations made by  Hebrew learning programs from different parts of the world.  When the representative from Budapest, Hungary, spoke of her program, she spoke of many of the offerings that Tarbuton has — but there was a major difference.  Their program operates in a three-story building that was once an Israeli consulate.  When it was closed, a philanthropist purchased it so it could remain in use for the community.

Asked if she hoped Tarbuton would someday have its own building, Starr said she much prefers having the program offered in diffuse locations close to the homes of the students. To be really successful, she said, the program should generate such demand for Hebrew language classes that the public schools would decide — even as they have in Chicago — to offer Hebrew as a language elective, just as they offer Spanish, French or German.

“I’d like to see the public schools hire teachers as part-time staff,” she said.

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com