Students find common ground with Israeli kids

By Denise Dick | March 19, 2011 at 12:08a.m.

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A book-sharing project between Woodrow Wilson Middle School and a school in Haifa, Israel, taught students that they are more alike than different.

“We’re more alike,” said Tyler Johnson, 14. “They listen to the same music and like the same kinds of food that I do.”

Tyler is one of 14 Wilson eighth-grade honors reading students involved in the International Book-Sharing Project.

The project teaches about the Holocaust and standing up against injustice and brings young people of different backgrounds together.

Students read the book “The Island on Bird Street” by Yuri Orlev and communicate, under the direction of teachers Lauren Olson-Sadlak and Jennifer Roseck, with students at Hugim Middle School in Israel.

“We talk about the book and about each other,” said Ja’Braylon McClendon, 14.

The book is about a young Jewish boy who hides in a Jewish ghetto during World War II after his relatives have been sent to a concentration camp.

“He has to survive on his own and take care of himself,” Ja’Braylon said.

The International Book-Sharing Project is sponsored by the Partnership With Israel Program of the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation. Resources used for the project are from The Ghetto Fighter’s Museum and The Yad Layeled Children’s Museum and Memorial in Israel.

Andrew L. Lipkin, assistant executive director at the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation, said the project started in this area seven or eight years ago with Boardman Center Middle School.

Since then it’s grown to other schools throughout the Mahoning Valley. Wilson is the first Youngstown city school in the project, and Sharpsville Middle School, also involved for the first time this year, is the first Pennsylvania school.

Olson-Sadlak got involved with the project through encouragement from Jesse McClain, a teacher at Boardman Center Middle.

The project also included a trip to Washington, D.C., and a visit to the Holocaust Museum.

Teresa Crum and Keiara Chism, both 14, like the museum but said it was sad.

Keiara couldn’t bring herself to go into what was called the death room, the place that included examples of the ways Jews were killed during the Holocaust. It was too upsetting, she said.

“Lots of people were crying,” Keiara said.

Particularly moving, though, was a bin of shoes that had been worn by people burned in the concentration camps, Teresa said.

Sharnell Condrey and Kenneth Cunningham, both 15, Victoria Collier and Taurean McCullough, both 14, and Tonneiqua Shade and Anastasia Lopez, both 13, found the experience worthwhile too.

When the 40 students visited the museum, each was given an identification card, giving the name and information about someone who had been in the Holocaust. At the end of the visit, they learned the fate of the person.

Of all the students, only Tonneiqua’s person survived.

“Her father gave her and her sister fake identification cards,” Tonneiqua said.