By: Lesley Litman As school leaders and teachers prepare for the new year, many are in the midst of busy planning, of examining their current systems and processes, and of asking big questions. In fact, this is an opportune time for all of us in the field of Jewish education and Israel education to ask
… Read More »Are your students becoming excited for the Passover break? How much more excited would they be if after the Passover break they were going on a school trip to Israel! This is what happens for students at Gesher JDS in DC, as documented in the case study “Getting Ready to Fly,” which can be accessed
… Read More »Cross-posted from eJewishPhilanthropy By Yossi Prager The AVI CHAI Foundation is delighted to release a new research report by Dr. Alex Pomson and Dr. Jack Wertheimer on the teaching of Hebrew language in Jewish day schools. As a foundation that has devoted significant energy and tens of millions of dollars toward Hebrew teaching and learning,
… Read More »Cross-posted from eJewishPhilathropy When Rachel Beyda, an undergraduate economics major at the University of California, Los Angeles, was nominated for the Judicial Board, she did not anticipate being castigated by her peers for her Jewish identity and affiliations with Jewish campus organizations, such as Hillel and her sorority. Never could Beyda have imagined that, in
… Read More »By: Deborah Fishman Over 50 educators gathered in Atlanta from June 21-26 to attend “Modern Israel’s History, Politics, and Culture,” a teacher’s workshop run by The Center for Israel Education (CIE) and the Emory Institute for the Study of Modern Israel (ISMI) and sponsored primarily by AVI CHAI. The teachers who attended received professional enrichment
… Read More »This post is cross-posted from JTA. By: Jack Wertheimer With the new school year nearly upon us, Jewish educational leaders are scrambling to prepare their teachers to discuss this summer’s Gaza War. The most pressing challenge is to design age-appropriate conversations: At which grade level might classroom discussions include potentially frightening topics, such as the
… Read More »AVI CHAI’s recently released report, “Hearts and Minds: Israel in North American Jewish Day Schools,” took the measure of day school Israel education through comprehensive surveys of schools, teachers, and students and school site visits. As schools, educators, and others in the Israel education ecosystem consider the report’s key findings and their implications, we plan
… Read More »This post is cross-posted here on The Jewish Week. By: Yossi Prager On June 1, thousands of day school students in the New York area will march in the Israel Day parade. While they will march by school, new research highlights differences among students within schools when it comes to caring about Israel. The findings offer a
… Read More »This post is cross-posted here on eJewishPhilanthropy. By: Alex Pomson and Jack Wertheimer Israel, we are informed with regularity, is a source of ongoing and bitter strife among American Jews. According to a cascade of press reports, rabbis feel themselves muzzled when it comes to speaking about Israel, communal institutions are wracked with divisive debates
… Read More »