by Miryam Gordon, Research Intern, Center for Jewish History<\/p>\n
Jewish life in general, and Jewish holidays in particular, places much emphasis on children. Kids are constantly encouraged to get involved in their religion and culture and learn more about it. Perhaps the best way to interact with children in order to encourage them to want to learn is through games. Throughout the archives of the National Jewish Welfare Board, held by the American Jewish Historical Society, (finding aid here<\/a>) there are examples of over fifty different games to play with children that relate to Passover in some way. \u00a0These games may teach a lesson on Passover, use common Passover items, or be used just for the children\u2019s entertainment. Passover is a time for family. This Passover, bring a little old fashioned fun to your Passover celebrations!<\/p>\n Quizzes and Crossword puzzles are a popular homemade educational tool. See this series <\/a>of blog posts on Hanukkah for many examples of questions and clues. I also noticed a very cute maze in the collection. The instructions tell the player, \u201cYou may not be as great a leader as Moses, but let\u2019s see if you can also bring the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land.\u201d \u00a0Egypt is labeled on one end with Eretz Yisrael on the other. Another category of games I found for Passover seems to be exclusive to this holiday. Apparently, games played with nuts were all the rage from the 1920s until at least the 1960s. More than half of all the games in the collection are games involving nuts. The games varied from simple games to very complex. Apparently, because nuts are cheap and kosher for Passover, children invented all sorts of variations of rolling or throwing nuts. <\/p>\n The simplest type of nut games are those simply involving nuts, with no other props required. An example of this is \u201cHeads or Tails.\u201d A player places a nut in his hand in a horizontal position. The other players must guess the position of his nut. If they guess correctly they keep the nut, otherwise they must give one of theirs away. Another easy game would be \u201cWhich Hand.\u201d A child simply puts a nut in one of his hands and closes his fist. Everyone else must guess which hand it is in. \u201cGuessing Odds and Evens\u201d is a simple game where a quantity of small nuts is placed in a player\u2019s hand. The rest of the group must guess if the amount of nuts is an odd or even number. <\/p>\n A slightly more complex form of nut game requires drawing lines or circles on the ground. For the game \u201cLogging Nuts,\u201d two lines must be drawn about ten to twenty-five feet away from each other. Players stand on one line and must throw nuts toward the other. Whichever player lands closest to the line wins all of the other nuts. In \u201cNut Golf,\u201d circles are drawn along a path. Each circle should be named after various elements of the Seder. Players proceed along the course and attempt to flip their nuts into each circle. The player that completes the course with the least number of flips wins. There is a suggestion to complicate the game by creating hazards. These would be named after obstacles that the Jews faced after leaving Egypt, such as the Red Sea and Amalek.<\/p>\n For the \u201cHazel Nut Tournament\u201d an \u201carea shaped like a Matsoh\u201d (also known as a square) should be drawn. The words Pesach, Matsoh, and Morror should be written inside the \u201cMatsoh box.\u201d Players stand a distance from the square and try and get their nuts into the box. If the nut lands on a letter, points are awarded based on the numerical value of the letter. The first player to reach 613 points wins the game. This would end up being a fun, educational, and competitive event. From the game, children would learn the Hebrew letters\u2019 numerical value and the significance of 613 in Judaism. The game could be conducted in a tournament fashion, with various rounds to determine an overall winner. For other ideas on how to celebrate Passover look at our other posts here<\/a> including this one<\/a> on the diversity of Haggadot in the collections. Or start your own search here: http:\/\/search.cjh.org <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Miryam Gordon, Research Intern, Center for Jewish History Jewish life in general, and Jewish holidays in particular, places much emphasis on children. Kids are constantly encouraged to get involved in their religion and culture and learn more about it. Perhaps the best way to interact with children in order to encourage them to want to learn is through games. Throughout the archives of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[44,406,405,8,407,404,398],"class_list":["post-1533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post","tag-ajhs-collections","tag-children","tag-games","tag-history","tag-miryam-gordon","tag-passover","tag-research-and-reference-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Passover examples I came across include:
–\t\u201cHe led the Israelites out of Egypt\u201d = Moses
–\t\u201cThe haughty ruler of Egypt\u201d = Pharaoh
–\t\u201cThe well known goat of Chad Gadya\u201d = Kid
–\t\u201cThe number of plagues\u201d = Ten<\/p>\n
Some children may enjoy more boisterous, interactive sort of games. Youth groups or just groups of children looking to have fun might use these suggestions:
Charades might include words like Passover (acted out by placing an object on the floor and passing over it) and Red Sea (acted out by pointing to something red and saying \u201csee\u201d).
\u201cCrossing the Red Sea\u201d also seems like a perfect idea for competitive kids that want to play a more active game. A large broken circle is drawn on the floor. The break in the circle represents the Red Sea and must be wide enough that it cannot be jumped over. The children represent the Egyptian soldiers chasing the Jews. Music is played as the children walk around the circle. When the music stops, the child in \u201cthe Red Sea\u201d is out.<\/p>\n
Other games involving nuts I came across:
1.\tPitch in the Kettle
2.\tPegging Nuts
3.\tFootball
4.\tRolling the Nuts
5.\tPassover Polo
6.\tVariation of Passover Polo
7.\tNut Race
8.\tRoll Board
9.\tUnder Plates
10.\tNut Hunt
11.\tDrop a Nut
12.\tThe Nut Ferry
13.\tNut Push
14.\tNut Relay
15.\tBowl Full of Nuts
16.\tThrow Them Out
17.\tPool
18.\tWith a Handkerchief<\/p>\n