RICHMOND, VA — Third graders at Temple Beth Shalom all cheered as their Hebrew school teacher pulled out the boxed game Apples to Apples during their class Wednesday evening. “We were all like, ‘finally’!” said third grader Lila Durman on how the class reacted, “We never get to play games. We were so excited to do something besides practice the aleph bet, and we all love Apples to Apples!” The excitement grew when the class spotted the label that read “Jewish Edition” at the bottom of the box.
“We thought it would be really fun and silly” Durman told us, “but then… we started playing.”
As the red cards were passed around, looks of confusion passed along the faces of the six students.
One student, Max Greene, was the first to ask about a card. “What’s Western Jewelry?” he asked, mispronouncing the card that said Western Jewry. The third grade teacher, Morah Julia, told the students to read the bottom of the cards if they did not know what it was. The descriptions, however, answered very few of their questions.
“I mean, I guess some of the cards were funny, like putting Hebrew School down for the green card that said Uneventful, but I don’t know who these random rabbis are. How do I know if it’s funny if I can’t even say their names? And how do you make Schindler’s List funny? I felt too bad to play it.” Lila said after the disappointing game.
On who won the game, Morah Julia said “We couldn’t even get through one round. It took twenty minutes just for everyone to pick out a card to play, and by then it was time to clean up and go home.”When asked if they would try to play Jewish Apples to Apples in a future class, Morah Julia said “Maybe, but we’ll probably just play Hebrew Red Light Green Light. They only need to know two words for that game, adom and yarok.” Yeah, good luck with that one.
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