Photos: Cheder at the Ohel’s Chanukah Carnival

The annual Cheder at the Ohel Chanukah Carnival was another smashing success!

For the first time, the third grade was in charge of making the booths for the annual carnival. The games and booths were all made by the children. The parents added a few latkes and donuts and, voila, a fantastic Chanukah program! There were raffles and prizes and general simcha. Rabbi Shmuel and Chavie Lieberman, shluchim at Hofstra University, and cheder parents created a great jeopardy game show that the whole school enjoyed!

The Light That Saved

“The Light that Saved” is an original Chanukah play inspired by true events. It was written and performed by Rabbi Mendel Levin’s kita vov at Cheder at the Ohel. The students put much creative energy into this original play. They even made the backdrops themselves.

The first scene starts as a rebbe in the former USSR was teaching his students in an underground cheder. The students were instructed to hide if anyone should come to the door. The next scene shows the rebbe being taken away by the KGB.

Fast forward 20 years. Two men are speaking and after a while they realize that one man was the son of the rebbe who was taken away and the other was one of his students. The student thought that his rebbe had died in the Russian prison. The son goes on the tell the story:

It was Chanukah, and his father, the rebbe managed to make a menorah from soap. The prison guard took it away and the rabbi protested with a hunger strike. Not wanting any trouble, the head officer of the prison allowed the rebbe to light in his office away from the other prisoners. It was then revealed that the officer was himself Jewish. This officer was instrumental in procuring the rebbe’s release from the prison.

The whole school along with parents from kita vov really enjoyed coming together to see the culmination of all the work the boys had done in order to prepare for this play. It was a great way to spend the last few moments of Chanukah…