By: Dr. Jack Wertheimer Cross-posted from Gleanings, the ejournal of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education of The Jewish Theological Seminary. Observers of American Jewish life are divided about many issues, but there seems to be a solid consensus that Jewish religious life today differs radically from the past. On the one hand, rising numbers
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Tree of Life Award Acceptance Speech Solomon Schechter Bergen County Community Celebration 6 May 2018 By: Dr. Susan Kardos Thank you so much, and thank you Sarah and David for that lovely introduction. It’s an honor for me and for Guy to say thank you to all of you, and to say Mazal Tov and
… 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 »Purim starts tonight at sunset. In preparation, we polled the AVI CHAI staff as to their thoughts on: What aspects of Purim do you find most meaningful and fulfilling? Here are the results: Rachel Abrahams: The familial nature of the holiday helps transmit your family’s customs and values around celebrations. What are the important pieces
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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
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Today we celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut, the fulfillment of the Zionist dream of an independent Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel. In Jewish day schools across the country, children are experiencing this special day on the Jewish calendar in a variety of modalities — eating Israeli food, participating in school-wide ceremonies, creating arts and crafts
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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
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