In the Netherlands, the country’s only Chareidi school, the Cheider of Amsterdam, reopened last week following the Dutch government’s decision to reopen the country’s schools, a Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) said.
“It was very cozy and full of togetherness, but it was also tough,” Channa Feige, a mother of nine and a teacher at the Cheider elementary school told JTA. “It’s good to be returning to normal.”
However, although schools have opened, not everything is back to normal. At the Cheider, plastic sheets hang from the ceiling, separating the students from their teacher.
“It’s difficult, you can’t walk around and the pupils can’t show you their notebook, for example, unless they press it up to the sheet,” Channa Feige said. “It’s almost unworkable.”
According to the JTA report, Amsterdam has two Jewish elementary schools, the Cheider, with 110 students, and Rosj Pina (Rosh Pina), a Maimonides style school, which also has a high school, aptly called Maimonides (which has not yet reopened).
The schools are located in the southern neighborhood of Buitenveldert, which is considered the modern Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, with its shuls, schools, nursing home and Jewish stores and restaurants.
Both schools have drastically cut classroom hours – in accordance with the education ministry’s guidelines – in order to cut the number of students in each class by half to enable adherence to social distancing regulations. Parents are forbidden from entering the schools.
Both Jewish schools, like all schools in the Netherlands, have been providing online classroom sessions on Zoom and Microsoft Teams since the schools shut down.
The security for both schools – an important issue in Jewish institutions in Europe – has changed to allow the gates of the schools, which are normally shuttered, to remain open to ensure adequate ventilation. Instead, the streets where the schools are located are closed to traffic and security guards are posted on the streets.
The Cheider’s board chairman, Herman Loonstein, told JTA that “the need to prevent infection has added a layer of complexity to the need to provide security to Jewish institutions.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
Let the teachers wear face shields and gloves. If fully dressed it becomes almost like a hazmat suit, but not as weird. Could work.
Plastic Sheets Separate Teachers From Students The Dutch are know to be ingenious as with their dikes & polders; Just in-case someone isn’t happy with this arrangement, then how about NYC buses with same separation between driver & all passengers.
Kudos to Channa Feige (whom I know personally!) & her colleagues. They make it work!
Speaking of Amsterdam, 10 Sivan is the Yartzeit of a former Rav HaRashi of Amsterdam, HaRav Elazar Rokeach ZT”L, the author of the Sefer Maase Rokeach.
In the Rokeach family we have been Zoche to make drawings and models of the Mishkan and the Batei HaMiksash. My work can be seen at: https://ourspecialmitzvah.org