Ernie’s in a bubbly bathtub with the rubber ducky Barvazoni and they’re playing a Hebrew version of Simon Says. “Where’s your af … beten … yad,” sings the Muppet mainstay on “Sesame Street,” pointing to the yellow toy’s nose, tummy and hand.
In another episode of “Shalom Sesame,” a series devoted to Jewish language, culture and traditions, children Avigail and Brosh honor the holiday Tu Bishvat by planting a tree sapling. They see it blown over, but learn that if they honor the spirit of the day — making a difference in the world — and cook a meal for somebody who’s busy or create a card for someone who’s sick, the tree will be uprighted and stand strong.
Way around the world in Yemen, the familiar imp Grover and his Arab friend Khokha visit a souk, displaying everything from bags of grains to handicrafts, and then a madrasa, where children put their backpacks in cubbies and love recess, just as American students do.
Parents of toddlers and preschoolers know the “Sesame Street” Muppet characters count in Spanish and the adult actors include Latinos, African-Americans and Indian-Americans in an effort to replicate the changing face of America and promote pluralism. But Sesame Workshop, the research arm of the children’s television studios, is exploring new and different ways to introduce other cultures and to help reinforce long-standing ones, such as Judaism.
A dozen episodes of “Shalom Sesame” were completed last year; “The Adventures of Grover and Khokha” focus on Arab culture and language; and other audiences, such as military families, are under study.
“Shalom Sesame” was released on DVD and two episodes have been shown on public television nationwide and in the Chicago area. Rights to the rest of the series are not available for broadcast because of fee arrangements connected to their production, but the limited response heartened Sesame Workshop and led to research into how families, schools and church groups are using the Jewish-centered content.
Part of the recently completed study was done by a graduate student at Southern Illinois University and overseen by an educator there. Their findings, which included that “Shalom Sesame” was particularly valuable to families in areas such as Carbondale where the Jewish community is sparse, have been forwarded to Sesame Workshop and may help form a road map for future projects, said Shari Rosenfeld, project director for “Shalom Sesame.”
“There’s an appetite among viewers and our funders for more,” Rosenfeld said. “We have a hypothesis that this model (‘Shalom Sesame’) can be replicated for other communities,” such as Indian-Americans, from whom Sesame Workshop gets a lot of inquiries for Hindu-targeted programming, she said.
“The content reaches and resonates with audiences much larger than the Jewish community,” Rosenfeld said. “It doesn’t deal with religion, but celebrates holidays much in the same way as ‘Sesame Street’ deals with other celebrations.”
She calls it an on-ramp for those in interfaith marriages and those seeking to learn about other cultures, and sees the Sesame characters as a bridge between the familiar and unfamiliar.
The response generated by public television station WTTW’s periodic showings of Hanukkah and Passover episodes of “Shalom Sesame” in Chicago prove all children can enjoy them, said Dan Soles, senior vice president of content.
“It’s valid to have programs that reach out to Jews and for non-Jews to foster understanding,” said Soles, who added the station would air more of “Shalom Sesame” if it were made available.
The Jewish Community Center of Chicago’s early childhood facilities celebrated the launch of “Shalom Sesame” by lighting a menorah and showing the Hanukkah episode to a number of families in Skokie, said Patricia Nisenholz, a Jewish educator. At home, she shared the stories with her granddaughter, frequently stopping the DVDs so they could talk about what they’d seen, she said.
“They introduce the culture and holidays, show a connection to Israel and use Hebrew,” Nisenholz said, with the latter being important to many parents who request the teaching of Hebrew for children as young as 3 or 4.
The JCC’s seven early childhood centers don’t consistently use “Shalom Sesame” or any videos in classrooms, but take advantage of special “Sesame Street” webinars on how to teach about holidays.
“Our directors love it. I’ve seen light bulbs go off because they’re always looking for something new to use,” Nisenholz said.
She believes “Sesame Street” faces tough competitors, such as the current favorite, Dora the Explorer, and families using so many different ways besides television to teach and entertain their children.
“Shalom Sesame” is included in the PJ (for pajamas) Library program, an international effort coordinated locally by the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. Subscribers from shortly after birth to 8 years old receive a book or DVD each month on some aspect of Jewish culture.
“We know from research that zero to 5 years is a time for developing, thinking, learning how to view the world,” said Debbie Cooper, assistant vice president for young family engagement at the federation. “Books start arriving when a child is 6 months old. He or she can’t talk, but can smell, see a candle lit … We view it as the best time to communicate Jewish life.”
As for “Shalom Sesame,” she said, “It’s fun to see familiar characters doing Jewish things. ‘Sesame Street’ is great about educating children of all faiths about their differences.”
Debbie Kroopkin, of Niles, believes videos can do a better job than books in helping young children make a connection to Israel, something that’s important for her 8-year-old twin girls and for children she taught in religious preschool.
“It’s hard to teach about Israel. It’s another country, and how does it connect to children?” Kroopkin said.
“Shalom Sesame” takes something kids know — the Muppets — and something they don’t — a foreign country — and creates a connection, she said.
While Kroopkin’s children attend classes and weekly services to learn about Judaism, that’s just not possible for Jonathan Wiesen’s two children in Carbondale, where families take turns leading prayers because there’s no regular rabbi. With his oldest, Daniel, 9, facing the likelihood of having to use Skype to prepare for his bar mitvah, Wiesen was happy to cooperate in research on “Shalom Sesame” for the sake of his other son, Julian, 4. The boy watched last year by himself and with Wiesen, his wife, Natasha Zaretsky, and Daniel.
“We want our kids to be exposed to Jewish culture and religion, but not in a heavy-handed way,” said Wiesen, who moved to Carbondale in southern Illinois 13 years ago. “We want them to know what it means to be Jewish, to recognize themselves as Jewish.”
Wiesen said Beth Spezia, the graduate student conducting the research, wanted to see how Julian was entertained by something with a Jewish theme. Wiesen said Julian was curious, but his reactions were subtle until the episode on Passover, which he watched over and over and started to sing the songs. Daniel would hear his younger brother giggling or singing and also start watching.
“One of the things we talked about was that Jewish people come from many countries. I liked the diversity of faces. They could have just had white Israelis, but they didn’t,” Wiesen said.
Spezia studied Wiesen’s family and six others in the Carbondale area for her master’s degree thesis and as part of the Sesame Workshop research overseen by Dafna Lemish, interim dean of SIU’s department of radio-television. She was evaluating how “Shalom Sesame” contributes to the formation of a child’s identity, how it fits into a Jewish family’s life at home and helps establish patterns of Judaism.
“How they use the show is tied to parents’ expectations and aspirations for their children,” said Spezia, who is outreach coordinator for WSIU Public Broadcasting. “It’s hard to instill patterns and ways of living. For non-Jewish spouses, (‘Shalom Sesame’) is really key to them having the confidence to teach Jewish identity in the home.”
“Shalom Sesame” could be a model “for preserving and sharing minority cultures,” such as Native American, migrant worker and Muslim-American, she said, and maybe a version could be developed for older kids with characters other than Muppets.
To Lemish, using media in this way offers a chance to reach out to the large number of people in transition and in multiethnic families.
“It communicates cultural identity and informs other cultures,” she said.
She was particularly interested in how extended families watching “Shalom Sesame” fostered understanding among age groups — for children on how their grandparents lived as Jews and for grandparents on how Judaism is being lived today.
“It can strengthen family ties and intergenerational identity,” she said.
