Avi Chai

By: Yossi Prager Rosh Hashana is considered a Day of Awe, the result of it being a day of divine judgment.  However, a little-known biblical story mandates that it is also a joyous day, for reasons that remain relevant today. The story begins some 2,500 years ago, on Rosh Hashana in 444 BCE, 70 years after the Second Temple had been completed (see  Chapter 8 of the Book of Nechemia).   A tall wooden platform was … Read More »

Located in the heart of Jerusalem, BEIT AVI CHAI is a cultural center providing a place  to encourage the many different expressions of Israeli-Jewish society and culture.  It is hosting The Fourth Jerusalem Piyyut Festival, which will be streamed live, at no charge, at http://www.bac.org.il/bac/piut/live.html A piyyut is a poem intended to be sung at a religious service. For more information about piyyutim be sure to check-out An Invitation to Piyyut where you will find … Read More »

By: Dan Perla Here’s a little-discussed idea that has the potential to save day schools and/or their teachers some money—allowing certain female Judaic studies teachers to treat part of their income as non-taxable parsonage. This is a benefit already widely available to rabbis, all of whom are men in Orthodox day schools. According to legal and halakhic scholar Michael Broyde, “there is now ample foundation for women who hold a certificate as a teacher or … Read More »

By: Eli Kannai On September 3, The New York Times ran a front page article, “In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores,” by Matt Richtel. There was an instant reaction from the Jewish educators in the field and ISTE participants began posting on the AVI CHAI Educational Technology blog. Mallory Rome was the first to respond in her post, “The NY Times Weighs In On Ed Tech”, stressing that the emphasis needs to remain on the … Read More »

By: Michael Berger As a program officer at The AVI CHAI Foundation specializing in leadership programming, I always look forward to the summers. From late June to late July, I shuttle between three programs that AVI CHAI has been privileged to support for several years: RAVSAK’s Project SuLaM; JTS’s Davidson School’s Day School Leadership Training Institute (DSLTI); and two Harvard Principals’ Center’s Summer Institutes – one for veteran school leaders (Leadership: An Evolving Vision), and … Read More »

(cross posted on the AVI CHAI Educational Technology Blog) By: Eli Kannai For years educational technology advocates are preaching that our schools need to reach a “one to one” device per student ratio. After all, the first thing most employees now get in any new job is some form of computation device with internet connectivity. It can be a laptop, a netbook, a smartphone, tablet, etc. Think about it, in many places, especially in an … Read More »