Parshat Vaera - Be'er SHEVA!
There is a certain type of pride that comes along with living in a developing small city like Be'er Sheva. This was a particularly good week for Be'er Sheva as the city celebrated 100 years since the British Army’s Australian and New Zealand forces conquered the city from the Turks. Before moving here, I knew nothing about this history but now I live just blocks from the military cemetery where over 1,000 of these soldiers are buried and a brand new museum has been opened in their memory. The events commemorating the 100 years were a BIG DEAL here. The area was being prepared weeks in advance (it was shocking to see so much work being done IN ADVANCE here); it was like the ultimate cleaning-up-for-the-in-laws; city workers were sweeping, planting, and painting at all hours. Streets were closed, three prime ministers were in attendance, Australians and horses took over the streets...but, that is for a different blog post...
Coincidentally (or maybe not...), in this week's parsha, we read of Abraham's journey to Be'er Sheva and his treaty there with Avimelech. Of course, Abraham's connection to Be'er Sheva is another huge source of pride for the city. The "holiness" of Be'er Sheva has always been overshadowed by Jerusalem and Hebron but in fact, it is the city with the earliest significance in our Biblical history. Just last week, at the festivities marking "yom haaliyah," our mayor boasted how the first "oleh" was Avraham Avinu and his aliyah was to the city of Be'er Sheva.
So...Be'er Sheva, even more than usual, is on my mind and I knew that I wanted this week's project to be connected to the city. Just a few years ago, Be'er Sheva introduced a new city logo and tagline which started appearing everywhere and is definitely familiar to anyone (including kids) who lives here:
The logo seemed very kid-friendly because of its colors and shapes. I also found some great images on the website of the graphic designer that got me even more excited and inspired. This definitely had great art potential:
After talking to the kids about the significance of Be'er Sheva in the parsha, we talked about different logos (or symbols) and how they are typically made out of simple but memorable shapes and/or colors. We looked at the development of Be'er Sheva's symbols:
Finally, I showed them a picture of the entrance to the city which features the logo and said that we would recreate this image through paper collage. Although this was a relatively simple project, it still took me HOURS to design!
But, I was not yet done with Be'er Sheva! I still had another Be'er Sheva-themed craft activity to run for the children of our community in honor of our annual Be'er Sheva shabbat. I knew that I wanted to do something different and more complex with them. I revisited an idea that I had considered but rejected for the school project. I had spent a lot of time researching cityscape collages like this one that I put together. I LOVED the way that similar projects looked on pinterest and blogs but didn't think that I could it pull it off in the short amount of time I had with the first and second graders. So, instead, I saved the idea for the community kids and decided to alter it from individual projects to one big collaborative paper collage mural. I had about twenty kids in my house on Friday afternoon working on the project and it was super messy and fun. I gave very little guidance and tried not to control the chaos. The kids were really proud of their creation and it was a great source of conversation and entertainment in the shul over shabbat.
