Books bound for Israel will help teach English
Manalapan youngster undertakes project as bar mitzvah approaches
BY DAVE BENJAMIN
Staff Writer

Alex Heckler (r) gets some help from his brother, Bradley, loading books that have been collected for shipment to Israel. See story, page 54.

MANALAPAN — Books and bucks are being collected for shipment to Israel by a 13-year-old Manalapan youth who is preparing to mark his bar mitzvah Oct. 22.

“Taking part in the Books for Israel project has been very rewarding because I am helping people on the other side of the world learn to read English,” said Alex Heckler, a student at Temple Beth Shalom, Freehold-Englishtown Road.

“Part of my studies for my bar mitzvah was tikun olam (helping the world) because we are all part of a larger community and need to help each other. This makes me realize how much we take for granted here in Manalapan,” Alex said.

At Temple Beth Shalom, every boy and girl who celebrates a bar or bat mitzvah, respectively, upon turning 13 is called upon to do a project in conjunction with that achievement. It can be creative writing, an art project or some form of community service.

Alex decided he wanted to collect books for shipment to Israel. The guests who will attend his bar mitzvah and the synagogue community were informed about his project.

Rabbi Ira Rothstein of Temple Beth Shalom said, “In many ways English is a common currency that helps people all over the world be able to not only transact business, but to communicate. For kids in Israel who need every opportunity to be able to master the English language, this kind of bar mitzvah project performs a real mitzvah (good deed). It really helps these kids to be able to connect up with the English-speaking world. In many ways it helps make communities and countries closer and more able to communicate with each other. In the end it helps everyone.”

After searching the Internet to find something of interest that would coincide with the portion of the Torah he will read, which is about the harvest holiday Sukkot, Alex made the connection that he is planting the seeds of love for reading by collecting books and sending them to Israel. It is his hope that many children will benefit from his project.

Alex is also hoping that friends, neighbors, relatives and fellow students will be able to donate $1 with each book that is collected. The money will help to pay postage rates that are $10 for the first 10 pounds and 90 cents per pound thereafter for third class shipment.

Books in English are needed in a variety of reading levels from pre-K through grade 12. The following are suggested: phonics materials, pre-reading skill books, Dr. Seuss books, Berenstain Bears books, chapter books, Encyclopedia Brown mysteries, Roald Dahl books, Harry Potter books, history-related books; educational magazines, classic short stories, dictionaries and science-related books.

That’s where the Jade Bar-Shalom Books for Israel project enters the picture.

“Books donated to the Jade Bar-Shalom Books for Israel book drive are not just shipped over to Israel with nowhere to go,” said Rena Cohen, a resident of Rockville, Md. and co-founder of the Jade Bar-Shalom Books for Israel Project, who along with her sister, Jade, and her brother-in-law, Illan Bar-Shalom, residents of Israel, founded and have coordinated the book project since 2002.

“Each synagogue, school, church, family or bar/bat mitzvah child who gets involved adopts a school cluster that includes, at minimum, an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school in one of Israel’s lower-income towns or city neighborhoods,” Cohen said.

Rather than simply being handed the books, the schools, and often the entire neighborhood, gets involved. Using donated materials and labor, English reading rooms and little libraries have been built in schools that never had a reading room or a library.

“In one village, when the first books were brought in, the entire town turned out to welcome and thank the book donor, and parents literally cried with joy,” Cohen said. “Visits from book donors or missions also have a tremendously positive impact, as do the books themselves.”

Teachers incorporate reading of selected books into the school curriculum in order to enrich student vocabulary and a basic grasp of the English language.

“It is important to note that English books in Israel are extremely expensive,” Cohen said. “Most people in Israel make a great deal less money than people in the United States, and unemployment and underemployment are both high, due in part to the economic destruction that is caused by the terrorist campaign of the last five-and-a-half years.”

Anyone wishing to donate books for Alex Heckler’s bar mitzvah project may leave them in the drop box at Temple Beth Shalom, Freehold-Englishtown Road (Route 522), just west of Taylors Mills Road.