Last week, I had a very hectic Sunday. First, I woke up to teach Hebrew school. My 4thgraders finished up learning the four questions just in time for Passover. The four questions are the beginning of the telling of the story of the exodus from Egypt. "Why is this night different from all other nights?" The next four sentences give specific examples of ways this night is special: we eat matzah, we eat bitter herbs, we did our food twice, and we recline. Throughout the rest of the Seder (the festive meal), the reasons for why these customs are performed are supposed to be answered. In Hebrew school, we spent the past month learning the roots and definitions for the questions, decoding the words and determining our own answers.

In 5th grade, we continued our study of Jewish communities, this week focusing again on the Holocaust. I used a lesson derived from the plans on Hitler's Daughter found on the Monkey Baa website (the production company that produces the play of the same title). Hitler's Daughter is based on the novel by Jackie French where school kids are playing a game waiting for the bus when one imagine what life would have been like for the fictitious daughter of Hitler. The lesson asked students to perform a series of scene excerpts from the play in an effort to understand the bigger ideas and messages that the play was trying to convey.

After Hebrew school, and a wonderful lunch with the education director, I made my way to Eisenhower Auditorium for the production of Hitler's Daughter. The hour-long show was very well done. Only one set and four actors, yet a story that jumped from modern day Australia back to 1940s Germany. It was a play that delved more into the ideas of parent-child relationships than the conflict of the Holocaust. The actors asked, are we, children, responsible for the actions of our parents? How do you know what's right and what's wrong? They brought up some interesting thoughts like is something right just because your parents say it is? How do you know? Topics that I'm curious to know how my 5th graders will respond to on Sunday.

After the play, I went to the creamery with some friends to talk after the show and kill some time before PLA class. PLA this week had the director from Career Services, Jeff Garis, come and talk to us about leadership personality and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator analysis. He spoke about the different categories, defining each one in relation to its opposite and giving examples of what pairs of characteristics correlated with certain job paths. We got our tests results back at the end of the session. I am an ISTJ: Introverted, Sensing, Thinking and Judging. The test defined me as "dependable practical, sensible and realistic" among others. This is the same classification I received when I did the test in middle school some ten years ago. It's curious to think that I haven't changed as a person, at least in these categories. Maybe I've just developed the skills I've had over the past decade. But it's a little disconcerting to think that I haven't changed as a leader in that long of a time span. Who defines their leadership style that young?

After class, I made my way quickly up campus to the Nittany Lion Inn for a wonderful dinner sponsored by Hillel, Schreyer Honors College, and the Presidential Leadership Academy. My table of Hillel and PLA students, Hillel Assistant Director Audrey, Hitler's Daughter cast member McKayla and techie Kate, had a wonderful conversation during the evening ranging from questions about the performance to snow to travel plans and topics about Antisemitism. It was a quite fascinating evening. While my day was long, it was very rewarding and thought-provoking day. 

Last week, Steven wrote about Mary Robinson's visit to Penn State as part of SPA's Distinguished Speaker Program. Like I, he was quite impressed with what she said during her hour-long talk. He commented on two aspects of her speech on which I would also like to reflect. The first point he brought up was women's rights: 
In the case of woman's rights in Western Asian countries such as India and Pakistan, I'm right there with her. I agree that women should have equal access to secondary education, jobs, and leadership opportunities. However, I'm of the impression that no level of pushing and prodding from the UN or other international figures, no matter how renowned they are, will make lasting change...Rather like all change, through education and outreach from many within the affected communities, can change of social traditions be brought.
While I agree with Steven that change has to come within the society for it to have lasting effects, I do believe the UN and international prodding is vitally important. Without the resources that these entities can provide, the education and outreach cannot occur. I did a project for my English 202H class last semester that focused on the Half the Sky Movement. Husband and wife team Alex Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn went to several countries around the world to "turn oppression into opportunity for women world wide." Their book, Half the Sky, highlights the various struggles that women face on a daily basis. But the book is not all pessimistic; they share the success stories of women who have turned their lives around, mainly through education or supporting themselves in a self run business. I encourage you to read the book (Half the Sky) go to their website (halftheskymovement.org) to learn more.  

The second point Steven made was about taxing carbon. He explained that taxing carbon would cause people to adapt to more environmental means of transportation and emission. His argument: money talks. And I agree that money makes a much better case in our capitalist society than the "we have to save our environment" line of reasoning. I wonder though if taxing would solve the problem quickly enough or if there were other methods that could stop or decrease our carbon usage more efficiently. 

To those who celebrate, I wish a zissen pesach, have a sweet Passover!

Last night, I had the opportunity to hear Mary Robinson, the first female president of Ireland speak as part of SPA's Distinguished Speaker Series. I went into the talk only knowing this and wasn't really sure what to expect. I was very impressed by her biography, her extensive work on behalf of human rights, and the young age at which she started. I was also impressed that she spoke for a solid hour without taking a break or drinking water :) But seriously, the amount of work this woman has accomplished in such a short time span is to be commended. She spent the evening telling her story, how she got to the various posts and positions she occupied, all recounted in her memoir that was just released in the US. 
She said that she owes her courage to her four brothers. Having to be the only girl in a family of five children would give most a reason to speak up. Her parents were both doctors; she pointed this out several times when explaining that politics were not in her family. After a year in Paris, a gap year her parents asked her to take before joining the nunnery, she decided against the Church and went to law school at Harvard, where things changed. She saw the power of young people standing up to have their voices heard and she was impressed. I want to point out that her family history is important to consider. No there wasn't a history of politics in her family and yes she was the only girl amongst four boys, but she had a privileged life. Her parents were doctors, they encouraged her to do what she desired and supported her with what she wanted, the watched out for her and wanted her to make the best decisions, she was smart enough to get accepted into Harvard Law School--she was a very lucky girl. 

I was very impressed when she spoke about her work as the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the UN after 9/11. She talked about how she knew this situation would be very difficult to manage appropriately. She wanted to treat the terrorist attacks as crimes against humanity and charge the offenders as such. However, the language was not "crimes against humanity" it was a "war on terror." Without the definition or any regulations, the US was violating human rights when they went into Afghanistan to search for the offenders to fight a war on terror; President Robinson said that the US would have been in the right if they were trying to bring perpetrators of crimes against humanity to justice.  When the US started decreasing their standards for human rights standards, it changed the world culture, other countries would look at the US and be able to justify their lack of respect for human rights, making the High Commissioner's job that much more challenging. It was enlightening to look at the after-effects of 9/11 from an outside perspective. 

These are just two of the ideas I took away from Mary Robinson's presentation last night. Overall, I was very impressed with her work and am excited to see what her work on climate justice will do!