Special to WJW

Capturing the attention of a group of teenagers is a challenging task. Yet Jewish educator Gabe Salgado managed to get a group of about 100 religious school students at Congregation Adas Israel to focus on Israeli politics and culture for more than an hour one evening last week.

Salgado's stop in Washington, D.C., was part of a weeklong, five-city educational trip sponsored by Caravan for Democracy, a group that aims to foster dialogue about the Middle East.

Joshua Bender, the religious school's director of education, figured that Salgado's presentation would be a good program for the students in advance of Israel's Independence Day. "A representative from the Jewish National Fund recommended Gabe and we decided to invite him," he said.

For the past 10 years, Salgado, 32, has been combining his technology skills with a passion for connecting Jewish youth with their culture and peoplehood. He creates slide shows and multimedia presentations based on popular Israeli music to help students learn about contemporary Israeli society.

Salgado hopes eventually to create "an immersive virtual space for online Jewish engagement with culture, history, Hebrew and other facets including Israeli culture and music."

Since 2003, he has traveled around the country and internationally to give presentations based on his slide shows.

At the religious school presentation, for students in grades 7-12, Salgado talked about the importance of music in Israeli society, and contrasted the differences between American pop music and Israeli songs. "There's always a message in Israeli music," Salgado said before showing the students a slide show with English translations of the song, "Rak Po" ("Only Here") by Israeli hip-hop group Hadag Nahash. Although the song describes the dilemmas that Israelis face, Salgado said it seems to be more popular with American audiences than with Israelis.

Salgado then introduced his slide show of Hadag Nahash's "Shirat Ha'Sticker," which literally means "The Sticker Song." Apart from being a hit song in Israel, it is well-known because of its politically charged lyrics. David Grossman, an Israeli journalist, composed the song using 54 familiar bumper sticker phrases, which Hadag Nahash then set to music.

Salgado explained to the students that Israelis' opinions on the conflict help define where they fall on the political spectrum and that the slogans used in the song illustrate this.

At the conclusion of the presentation, Bender asked the students to explain what the songs reveal about Israel as a country. "Israel has had many wars," one student said, while another observed, "There's a lot of freedom of speech there."

The presentation, Bender said, "did a good job at bringing out some of the deep and complex issues and challenges facing Israeli society."

Jill Sorcher, 14, of Bethesda agreed. "It struck me because it was a side of Israel I haven't seen before. It was very real," she said.

Bender believes "that students were affected by Gabe's presentation on different levels depending on their knowledge, background, and understanding of Israel and it's recent history. For example, [Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin's assassination may bring out emotions in many adults because we remember hearing the news, reading the papers and seeing the images on TV. Some of our students, on the other hand, were not even born at the time Rabin was assassinated."

Salgado said that diverse levels of knowledge are a key attribute for a good audience for his presentations. "In the ideal situation, students with more knowledge are able to add to the discussion and fill in the blanks, while less knowledgeable participants get an introduction to the concepts dealt with," Salgado said.

According to Bender, Salgado's presentation reminds "Jewish educators to never make assumptions about what our students know about Israel" and shows the importance of putting the issues in context.

"One of the greatest challenges of teaching Israel is that we want our students to feel a connection and love for Israel, but we also want them to grapple with the real and difficult issues facing the young country," he said.