By Scott Brinton
The youngsters took a two-week trip to the ancient land. Among their many imaginary activities while in Israel, the children planted trees on a kibbutz, wrote cards in a post office, decorated cakes in a bakery, went shopping at a market, fished in Eliat, made seashell collages in Tel Aviv, conducted science experiments in the Dead Sea and climbed Masada, a plateau in the Judean Desert.
Elly Wortzman, Temple Beth-El's nursery school director, who created the Israel unit 26 years ago, said, "The purpose of the program is to give the children a love of Israel, and hopefully they'll take a trip themselves one day."
Wortzman added, "When you hear the children talk, it sounds like they've been someplace when they never actually left the building."
The children recently capped their experience by bringing in their suitcases, to be loaded with the many projects they created over the past two weeks, and watching a slide show that Wortzman put together during her real-life trips to Israel.
Comments about this story? SBrinton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 203.
