By GARY FIELDS
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) - At a time when anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise, schools should take steps to teach empathy as an antidote to racism and religious hatred. That’s the word from several rabbis attending a conference in New York.

The rabbis praised a pilot project in El Paso, Texas, that requires students to pause each day to consider others. Children are given a small box shaped like Noah’s Ark. They collect money in it daily and give it to charities chosen by their classes.

Rabbi Levi Greenberg says daily giving connects the students to other cultures, creating compassion. So far, the boxes have gone to 1,500 students.

The program took on extra poignancy in August after a gunman opened fire in a Walmart in El Paso, killing 22 people.

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