Voices from the Field
Ridiculously Cool Hebrew School
“Only one hundred more days until camp!” I would run around shouting on March 15, each year. “Only one hundred more days until camp!” It was so close I could taste it.
Camp, of course, was the best four weeks of my summer: horse back riding and swimming with my best friends every day, celebrating Shabbat, sneaking out, meeting cool Israelis, and no parents in sight.
It was heaven on Earth.
But I fell into depression each year after camp. My life was especially unfair because most of my camp friends attended day schools together and therefore got to hang out with each during the school year.
But my horrible, awful, inconsiderate parents were committed to two things: my Jewish identity AND public schools.
Oh the injustice! To top it all off I had to go to Hebrew school, AKA the most boring, smelly, horrible place on Earth. I loathed Hebrew school and so did all my classmates – so at least we all had that in common!
Fast forward 20 years. After many summers at camp, a wonderful youth group experience, a year in Israel, a BA in Jewish Studies and an MS in Education– a few families in the neighborhood approached me, “Come on! It’s not rocket science. As kids, we loved camp and hated Hebrew school. We want our children to love being Jewish. Can you break the mold and try to create something during the year that’s as awesome as Jewish summer camp?”
In reflecting on this conversation I isolated two priorities that would help us mimic the love-fest that is summer camp: focusing on building relationships and a consistent community. After all, camp was incredible because I was with my closest friends everyday for a month.
So we combined elements of summer camp, like a relaxed atmosphere, cool counselors, a focus on modern Israel, and team challenges and invited a few families to join our pilot program.
What started as a neighborhood club in 2009 is now Atlanta’s premier independent Hebrew School, serving 100+ students this fall and launching JKG Afterschool Community.
Since the April article about Jewish Kids Groups (JKG) appeared on Kveller.com, parents, lay leaders, rabbis, and educators have asked me about JKG success engaging unaffiliated and intermarried families.
I wish there was a formula I could give them to reach the masses. I wish I could hand them the answer that would quadruple their outreach. But, alas, there is no silver bullet.
I believe JKG start-up success is a result of the fact that it was designed in response to key gaps in my community’s supplemental Jewish education system:
1. GAP: Traditional Hebrew school has been pegged as a failing model of Jewish education for more than 40 years. This is the biggest Jewish shanda of our time. Studies show that it is not associated with higher levels of Jewish identity nor with most other desired outcomes.
NEED: A re-imagined Hebrew School.
SOLUTION: JKG is a radically different Hebrew school. We employ a cutting-edge curriculum, feature fun programming and focus on building Jewish friendships because, according to Steven Cohen’s 2011 paper, “Above and beyond Jewish education, having Jewish friends in the childhood years matters.”
2. GAP: According to the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, 67 percent of children ages 6-17 who are being raised Jewish in intermarried Jewish households have never experienced a Jewish education.
NEED: A program that appeals to and serves interfaith and unafilliated families.
SOLUTION: JKG was designed for these families -- the demographic most statistically likely to forgo a Jewish education for their children. JKG is not a membership model (like synagogues), but rather a pay per service program (more like a dance classes or guitar lessons).
Currently, 50 percent of the families whose children attend JKG are inter-faith and many of the families are not affiliated with any formal Jewish institution. To me, this demonstrates that these families are interested in giving their children a Jewish education, but they want it to be on their terms (no membership fees and high-quality programming). By 2015, JKG projects its enrollment to be between 125 and 150 students, half from inter-faith families.
3. GAP: There are insufficient options for premium Jewish education available in metropolitan Intown Atlanta, where an increasing number of young Jewish families are resettling due to gentrification of neighborhoods, improving schools and economic growth.
NEED: An independent Hebrew school in a location convenient to city dwellers.
SOLUTION: JKG is located in the city ofAtlanta and appeals to the growing Jewish Intown population who live far from Jewish anchor institutions such as the JCC. JKG families crave fresh, innovative approaches to Jewish education.
In August 2012, based on the needs of many of its working families and my personal desire to create daily programming toward recreating that magic of summer camp, JKG will expand its pilot program. The new JKG Afterschool Community will combine a first-rate Jewish education with the services of an aftercare program for children in pre-K through fifth grade to accommodate working parents.
Look, Mom and Dad! A daily program for Jewish kids who don’t go to day school!
JKG Afterschool Community will open each day with play/game/snack time, followed by homework help, a camp-like tefillah sing-along, and our core programming that varies by day:
- Mondays = Jewish Drama
- Tuesdays = Hebrew Wizards curriculum
- Wednesdays = Jewish Arts
- Thursdays = Hebrew Wizards curriculum
- Fridays = Jewish Sports
No matter which days parents select, their children will build friendships and enliven their Jewish souls — much like Jewish summer camp!
To learn more about Jewish Kids Groups visit www.JewishKidsGroups.com.
Ana Fuchs is a pioneer in the field of alternative Jewish supplemental experiences and has been instrumental in building Jewish Kids Groups, one of the only independent Hebrew schools in the country.
Ana was named one of today's "most dynamic young Jewish leaders" and awarded the prestigious ROI fellowship by the Schusterman Foundation (2012); selected as a PresenTense Global Fellow (2011) for her cutting-edge work in the field of Israel education; and named one of JESNA's 2011 Jewish Education Innovators.
Ana has formal and informal Jewish teaching and administrative experience in supplemental Jewish education, including teaching in religious schools, leading Israel trips, bar-mitzvah tutoring, developing Israel curriculum, participating in educational seminars, and running informal Jewish kids programming. Research indicates that more and more families are opting out of giving their children a Jewish education; Ana aims to reverse this trend with her radically different Hebrew school. Jewish Kids Groups focuses on positioning each child for success and building memorable experiences while meeting each family where they are, Jewishly.
Ana has a M.S. in Instructional Design and Technology from Georgia State University and B.A. in Jewish Studies and Middle Eastern Studies from Emory University.
Ana happily eats, sleeps and breathes Jewish Kids Groups, but she also likes to travel to far-away lands, make pickles, read good books and play with Ella the kalba (dog).
Categories:
Lag ba'Omer: Playing with Fire
Lag ba'Omer and Israel means mainly one thing to me: fire.
The custom of lighting bonfires may have mystical roots. Lag ba'Omer is observed as the yahrtzeit (death anniversary) of the second-century sage Rabbi Shimon bar-Yochai. Legend has it that, prior to his death, Bar Yochai revealed all of his mystical secrets. Thus the bonfires: the light of Bar Yochai is not extinguished.
Be that as it may, for young kids (young boys in particular), fire is fascinating in and of itself, and a warm spring night like those that Lag ba'Omer invariably falls on, is a great time to take some dry wood to a fire pit to make it blaze. Walking outside in the evening of Lag ba'Omer, one sees bonfires all over the place. But even more, one smells them. The smoke is everywhere, even the next morning. (For many of us, that's not terribly pleasant.)
Of course, Lag ba'Omer derives its name not from Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai or from the bonfires, but from the Omer, the 49-day period of counting that links Pesach and Shavuot. Lag is 33 in gematria (Lamed=30, Gimmel=3). In the kabbalistic counting of the Omer, this day is Hod she'b'Hod: Beauty within beauty. It is the most beautiful day of the year. Perhaps the emphasis on fire is related to this: the dancing light and warmth of a fire is an essentially beautiful thing.
But fire is also one of the ultimate symbols of the potential goodness and potential destructiveness in human activity. A fire can produce light and heat, it can bring comfort, it can inspire us. But fire can also choke us with its smoke and destroy indiscriminately. It has to be tended to, guarded, and put to good use.
In this sense too, fire becomes a metaphor--and in fact it is one of the Rabbinic metaphors for Torah. When we teach Torah, when we engage our students through the richness of Jewish thought and tradition--and through Israel--we are playing with fire: we can light a spark, but we have to be careful at the same time. Perhaps then that's what the fires of Lag ba'Omer are really there to do: to remind us, as the spring turns to summer, of what this season of our activity and effort can bring, and what we need to do to make it successful.
Rabbi Josh Feigelson serves as Educational Director for Ask Big Questions, a national initiative of Hillel to promote civil dialogue on campuses throughout North America. He is a doctoral student in the Department of Religious Studies at Northwestern University, focusing on the intersection of American Jews and American higher education. From 2005-2011 Josh served as Campus Rabbi at Northwestern Hillel, and currently serves as a spiritual leader of the Evanston Orthodox Minyan. He is an alumnus of Yale University and was ordained by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. Josh blogs about Jewish life and education at www.rabbijosh.com
Categories:
The Train Stopped
It's often called the most difficult 48-hour period in Israeli life. From memorial to celebration - Yom Hazikaron to Yom Ha'atzmaut - Israelis switch gears in a manner in which the human psyche was not designed.
Yesterday on my way from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, driving with my friend and colleague Yossi - himself a veteran of multiple conflicts - said to me. "You know, 138 soldiers fell this year, in a year that was 'quiet'" (quiet is a peculiar term that Israelis use when there is no large-scale conflagration - I'm not sure residents of Be'er Sheva, Sderot, and Askelon would consider it a quiet year). It means that probably most of those soldiers died in some sort of accident – an inevitable tragedy in a country that is always preparing itself for the next conflict.
Yossi was to continue home to Haifa by train after I left him in Tel Aviv, and he would be on the train at the time of the memorial siren at 8:00 PM. We wondered together if the train would stop for the siren. "I don't know," he answered - not an answer I am used to from the 63-year old veteran Israel educator, "One time I was in the airport, and the baggage carousel stopped, but I've never been on the train."
I got a call at 8:05 PM. The train stopped.
Meanwhile, in Rabin Square, which bears the name of the Israeli prime minister who was assassinated there, tens of thousands of people gathered for a memorial ceremony. Countless other ceremonies take place in cities, towns, kibbutzim and moshavim around Israel. It was my first time at the ceremony there, and I was struck by at least two things. First, it had the feeling of the calm after a violent storm, when people go outside their houses to assess the damage, take comfort in the fact that most of their neighbors are OK, and recognize that some are not. Second, I was overcome by its youthfulness. Led by the journalist, turned politician Yair Lapid, the crowd looked more like a rock concert than a memorial; but solemn, quiet, and respectful. In a city, a culture, and a generation that is sometimes accused of complacency, it was a visceral re-enactment of the Abrahamic acceptance of responsibility: Heneini, here I am.
Moments like this remind me of why I feel passionate about Israel as a place, but also of its educative power for the Jewish people. Authentic experiences that reflect real-life execution of Jewish values and human response are the meat of creating full and meaningful Israel Education.
I had the privileged this last week of working, learning, and traveling with many of the camp directors, educators, and shlichim participating in the Goodman Initiative for Modern Israel History. As a part of their participation in the Jewish Agency for Israel training of shlichim, we joined together to create some of our own authentic experiences: discussing the life and legacy of Hanah Senesh at Kibbutz Sdot Yam, sitting with a leader of last summer's "tent protest" movement on Rothschild Boulevard, and hearing about young Israelis' first recollections of hearing David Ben-Gurion's Declaration of Independence.
Much of our conversation centered on how we create authentic experiences at summer camp and how Israeli shlichim - in partnership with American staff - can be agents for these kinds of experiences. Further, we are looking for ways to use these experiences as hooks to deepen connection to Israel, increase knowledge on Modern Israel, and hopefully open the door for more authentic experiences in the Jewish lives of campers.
Adam Stewart has been involved with Israel education and teen travel experiences for fifteen years and is the Director of the Goodman Camping Initiative. Adam has taught at the Newberry Library Center for Public Programs and Loyola University Chicago, has lectured on topics in Jewish history and culture, and has served as an educational consultant to a variety of Jewish organizations.
Categories:
Pages
