When I arrived at my last school, a K-6 elementary, there were no Bibles, Torahs or
any authentic other religious books. We did have a collection of books in the 200s
about religious holidays but they were mostly about Christian holidays.
My predecessor had been Jewish and at one time there were many Jewish children in
the area. However the current population was predominately Christian with a small
percentage of Jewish children.
Our fiction and easy holiday books included a few older Jewish titles but for the
most part were mainly about Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, etc.
I had a discussion with 2 Jewish students who confessed that they felt left out
because we had so few Jewish holiday books. So I set out on a mission to enlarge
my religious and holiday story books about the major Jewish holidays (Hanukkah,
Passover, Sukkoth, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanna). We added about 40 books of this sort
but no Torah.
The Jewish students were elated and the collection continues to be a popular one
during those holidays.
In subsequent years, our population became more religiously and culturally diverse.
At one point, our population included Africans, Serbians, Croatians, South Asian
Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Middle Easterners, Israelis, among others. I added
books about specific holidays when I could find them. However I felt no need to
include specific religious books like the Bible, the Koran or the Torah. In my 17
years at the school I never received one request for these documents. If I had, I
would have directed the patron to our larger town public library.
Jo
Josephine Dervan, MLS -Online Instructor
School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Stout
dervan at optonline.net
He who has a library and a garden, wants for nothing- Cicero
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