Mama Doni

Rockin' West Orange for children of kibbutz

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

October 9, 2008

...In an effort to connect preschool children in MetroWest synagogue schools with their peers across the ocean, the Mama Doni Band will offer a performance to benefit the children of Erez on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 12.

Child's Way Derech HaYeled: A Jewish Montessori School, located at B'nai Shalom in West Orange, is hosting the concert at the synagogue.

The concert is part of an effort to invigorate the tzedaka curriculum at the school, founded in 2005 by Rabbi Susan Lazev.

The school's 35 children already engage in giving: they celebrate their birthdays by performing a mitzva, collect tzedaka with their families, and contribute to the school's own tzedaka box. Planning for the benefit concert began with a grant provided during the summer by the Partnership for Jewish Learning and Life — an agency of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ — which enabled each child to decorate a tzedaka box to take home. The money they collected, together with one third of the proceeds raised through the concert, will be sent to Erez. (The rest of the funds raised will offset expenses.)

"We want kids to know that reaching out and helping others can be a good time, and that small children can make a difference. You don't have to wait until you get older to do a mitzva," said Lazev. "The children learn that the shofar call is a wakeup call. We want them to know that all these holidays are not just apples and honey but that the real meaning behind the ritual is to spur us on to do things."

Doni Zasloff Thomas, in addition to being the lead singer and songwriter of the Mama Doni Band, is also the music teacher at the school, where she has two children enrolled.

When she was asked to perform, she said, "I thought, What a great way to pull all the kids of this MetroWest community together."

Preschools and synagogues across Morris and Essex counties have signed on as cosponsors of the concert, including B'nai Shalom, Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel Nursery School in South Orange, Morristown Jewish Center Beit Yisrael Shalom Yeladim Nursery School, Summit Jewish Community Center Nursery School, Shoresh Preschool at Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, White Meadow Temple in Rockaway, Congregation Shomrei Emunah in Montclair, and the JCC MetroWest Early Childhood Centers in West Orange and Whippany.

The children in all the schools that signed on received tzedaka boxes to decorate and a Mama Doni CD. Although few will discuss the details of the terror faced by the children in Erez, Lazev said, the larger lesson for her students is that "we are responsible for each other in the classroom, and we are responsible for children over there, and we are sending them money to help them. We are pulling together as a school and as a community."

Zasloff Thomas said she tries to make her concerts "a total celebration — in a hip way — of being Jewish." As for her own children, she said she hopes they gain an appreciation that "being Jewish is big and exciting and there are Jews all over the world, and we can help each other."

In addition to money, children are sending cards and photographs to youngsters in Erez.

The concert is at B'nai Shalom at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 12. Admission is $10 per person.

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