Kosher Salami

It is ironic that I got the sad news about the death of Marian Cooper (1929-2009), by email, because before there was e-mail or CDs or videos, or computers in every home there was "Morah" (Hebrew for "teacher") Marian.

Marian Cooper was the kindergarten teacher from the early days of the South Peninsula Hebrew Day School (SPHD) in Sunnyvale, California. and continued in that capacity for over 20 years. Many principals and teachers come and go, but Morah Marian continued and continues. If you attended SPHD in the 70 or 80, or even early 90s, you probably sit on tiny chairs in the kindergarten class Morah Marian.

It's funny, but even if my first grade teacher of Hebrew at SPHD was a close friend of our family, and my second year teacher of Jewish studies has been my mother, I still vividly remember most events the kindergarten Morah Marian. Robert Fulghum perhaps the author of the book All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten, but he lived Morah Marian.

Fulghum wrote: "These are the things I learned (from kindergarten). Share everything. Fair play. Do not hit people. Put things where you found them. Clean your own mess. Do not take things that are not Sell. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash hands before eating. Rinse. Warm cookies and cold milk are food for you. live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw some and paint and sing, dance and play and work every day. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together. "

Of course, Morah Marian has taught us all that, but there was more. There were songs (in English and Hebrew), stories and games (A Tisket, a-tasket a kind of duck, duck, goose game as we could never play "steal Bacon SPHD, he to "steal the kosher salami"). We've learned our ABC and Aleph-Bet. We have made (anyone remember singing '10 Little Indians' for mounting through Not very politically correct, but nobody has used the "Amerindians" in the 70s) and we had fun.

Well, not fun being left at nursery school (they have never been so green lefty scissors for everyone) and Marian Morah upset my parents so much about my writing botched it insisted that the house of clay and practice tightening and loosening with her fists. That even invited my mother to make sure that my younger sister and his brother ended up in the kindergarten class the other side when their turn came. But perhaps the fact that I write today is due in part to Morah Marian and clay. Who knows?

Oh, and I remember birthday parties we had in class Morah Marian. The birthday child sit on a chair and all the children sitting cross-legged (not a PC term) on the ground. "Who has a birthday wish of the birthday child?" Morah Marian request. "You can wish anything in the world for them, but it must be something that money can buy." And then, hands and would be shouted by a will: "I hope you have a good life! "I wish you could go live in Israel. And then a child, usually Ivan Bergman, shouted: "I hope you get a Star Wars Luke Skywalker action figure for your birthday! The whole class burst out laughing as Morah Marian gently reminded him that he must have something money can not buy.

But she was always Morah Marian in us even when we got older. I remember seeing her in a bar-mitzvah of a friend when I was 14. I grew up in it, but just seeing her I felt like the little Jonathan in kindergarten.

She was honest and funny. Once, after school, I had to have in 6t.