Rabbi Ira Flax, the director of education and Beth-El Temple in Birmingham, speaks to Mortimer Jordan High School students as part of their studies on the Holocaust.

Sept. 11 has been on many people’s thoughts over the past week, but Mortimer Jordan High School students are learning about another tragedy.

Rabbi Ira Flax, director of education at Temple Beth-El in Birmingham, visited the school on Friday and spoke to students about the culture and beliefs of Judaism, and answered their questions on the subject.

“We live in a fairly homogenous community,” said Lisa Byrd, a Mortimer Jordan teacher that asked Flax to come to the school. “We try to lay a groundwork lesson on Judaism as part of the study… We’re looking at something that’s different from what we are used to.”

Flax served as a military chaplain in the United States Air Force and retired as a lieutenant colonel. He served in Germany, Turkey and the midwestern United States. While in the Middle East, he smuggled his “tallit” and “tefellin,” two religious items significant to Judaism, into Saudi Arabia, where such items can be considered illegal for being non-Muslim. He was also the only chaplain on duty at a Garman base the night 57 wounded soldiers were transported from Somalia during the events depicted in the film “Black Hawk Down.” He has been the director of education at Temple Beth-El for only six weeks.

“I’ve talked to high school groups many times,” Flax told the students. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and the questions I used to get from students groups was very antagonistic, asking ‘why don’t you believe in this or that.’ In the last 10 years, since the events in the Middle East, the questions have changed. They’re not so antangonistic; they’re more like ‘what can we do together for the greater good with what we have in common?’”

Flax spoke on Jewish law and customs, including a review of the history of the Jewish race and how it predates even Roman and Greek civilizations, and questions about a set of over 500 rules that practicing Jews must follow.

“Judaism is about thinking about what you’re doing…It’s about doing what’s best for you and your relationship with God,” said Flax. “One thing you never see a Jewish person doing is proselytizing.”

Flax tied the Holocaust with present-day culture and his own personal experiences. He said one phenomenon he grew up with was having multiple friends whose parents had survived the Holocaust, but who had no uncles, aunts, cousins or grandparents.

“They would get together, and they would form a family based on that same experience,” said Flax.