Many schools are questioning whether, in light of the atrocities of October 7th and the ongoing war, they should proceed with their regular Purim shenanigans this year. A variety of sources across the ages, from the Talmud to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks OBM, agree; the answer is an unequivocal yes!
Judith Talesnick, founder and director of Education at Empowering Educators, offers guidance for educators to uphold the uniqueness of each learner in their classroom – especially those who are neurodiverse – as Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month (JDAIM) kicks off.
"I find that not infrequently these days, I’m angry at God," writes JEIC Managing Director Sharon Freundel of her feelings about the situation in Israel. "I find myself angry at the One who ultimately orchestrates what happens in this world...But I’m an adult who has spent much of my life grappling with theological issues. How might we address emotions such as anger at God with our students?" she asks.
What is the ROI of funding Jewish schools? A robust and bright future for the Jewish people.
"Inspired children will become the kind of adults who independently pick up a sefer (Jewish book) or seek out a study partner. This exchange of ideas ...is what builds community," explains Mayberg Foundation Director, Operating Programs Amian Frost Kelemer in this eJewish Philanthropy article.
Learn about how our partner organizations, like Hadar Institute's Pedagogy of Partnership program, Makor Chaim Institutions' Lifnai v'Lifnim program, Amatz and JEIC's own God Expansion initiative each offer creative techniques and pedagogies to achieve this goal.
Read “The ROI of funding Jewish schools” here
The October 7th attacks created a profound impact on Israel education -- for our students and our educators. Over the past two months, Unpacked for Educators has been fielding non-stop requests from schools seeking guidance and clarity in this moment of uncertainty.
Sarah Gordon, senior director of Israel education at Unpacked for Educators, a division of OpenDor Media, shares four suggestions for what schools can do to help their students address the challenges of the current situation.
JEIC Managing Director Sharon Freundel's article "The Spiritual Significance of Hebrew Letters” was featured on the Jewish Unpacked website. In it, she explains the spiritual significance of Hebrew letters, and uncovers the messages they have conveyed through millennia. From mystical meanings to numerical values, the Hebrew letters communicate more than just phonetic sounds; they are a gateway to understanding deeper spiritual truths.
“As part of their spiritual meanings, each Hebrew letter holds a numerical value,” Sharon explains. “These numerical values are known as Gematria. In Gematria, every letter corresponds to a number. This adds depth to words and phrases, as the sum of these values reveals hidden connections between words.”
Read more here.
The amygdala serves as a crucial bridge between a student's emotions and learning in the classroom. Rabbi Shmuel Feld, founding director of the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge, explores some ways that educators can anticipate their students' emotional responses and optimize the classroom environment for more effective learning.
Serving as head of a Jewish day school is an honor that brings with it the holy responsibility of ensuring the future of the Jewish people. The quality of each school is largely dependent on having a capable, visionary leader at its helm. That makes the search for a head crucial to the ongoing development and success of that school.
Amy Wasser, senior director of Prizmah School Services, delves into the search process and the unique factors involved when a Jewish day school embarks upon a head of school search.
When Hannah Senesh Community Day School was founded nearly 30 years ago, lay leaders and professional staff rolled up their sleeves and got to work. Side by side, they swept hallways and served lunches -- they did whatever it took to keep the school running.
Today, parents lend their time and professional expertise on more formalized boards and committees. While the roles of professional staff and lay leaders evolve based on the needs of the school, what remains constant is the need for all parties to work together, in sync, to achieve great outcomes for the entire school community. Head of School Nicole Nash and Board Chair Melissa Kushner reflect on some of the school’s strongest values in this blog post.
As Jewish educators, we bear the burden not only of taking care of each other but of raising our students in ways that they will continue to be proud, fearless Jews. We know that we cannot depend on the world at large, even if many individuals proffer their support. But we have so much we can depend on.
Sharon Freundel, managing director of the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge, addresses the current situation in Israel and touches on 4 things that educators can keep in mind as they continue to guide students.
We are bidden to ask for forgiveness and to receive it before Yom Kippur, as God cannot absolve us of our misdeeds unless the person we have wronged has done so.
As we enter the season of Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe, where we attempt to make amends to other individuals and God. Sharon Freundel, Managing Director of the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge, reminds us to treat our students with the utmost respect, as they deserve, and to ask forgiveness of them if we don’t live up to our own expectations.
On September 4th, JEIC will begin posting “A Motivational Moment from Tefillah”. Tefillah is how we communicate with God, how we become part of the larger Jewish community, and how we connect with ourselves on a daily basis. It is also a way that we can inspire our students to create a relationship with the One, with other Jews, and with themselves, as they figure out where they belong in the universe.
In September we will post a new inspiring message from tefillah, starting with the tefillot of Yamim Nora’im (the High Holidays) and Sukkot, and in October, we will commence with weekly posts from the weekday Shacharit. We will also expand our reach by posting not only on Facebook, but also on LinkedIn and Instagram.
Recently, the Maimonides School in Brookline, Massachusetts, began a journey towards crafting what is now the Maimonides Fellowship program for aspiring Jewish educators.
Through learning from other fields that include practicums and residencies as well as from other day schools that have pursued similar initiatives, the vision was a program that could bring a select handful of undergraduate and graduate students to the Maimonides School. Rabbi Yaakov Green, Head of School at Maimonides explains how these Fellows formed a cohort, and over the course of several long weekends–six to be exact–the Fellows would enter into a paid student teaching experience in both formal and informal Jewish education.
Through regular context clues and scaffolding, a student, or a group of students, could gather information to discover the meaning or meanings of a target word.
This blog post is a copy of the Torah class that Rabbi Feld gave at our 2023 Innovators Retreat. In it, he focuses on the theme of helping our students develop intrinsic motivation, through exploration of the word mincha.
As part of our mission to pursue lasting school change, JEIC works with student-centered professional development providers in the Jewish day school field. Working with these partner organizations allows us to have a broader reach than we could have on our own. Through this partnered work, we have learned some important lessons about creating sustainable improvements in Jewish teaching and learning.
Rachel Mohl Abrahams, Senior Advisor for Education Grants and Programs at the Mayberg Foundation, gives some insight and valuable lessons for program directors, school partners, and funders.
At JEIC, we maintain that every single Jewish child deserves a Jewish day school education. It is the only way the Jewish people will sustain itself. We also believe in a big tent, large enough to hold any Jew who wants to immerse themselves in day school education. Every Jew has something to learn from every other Jew no matter where they fit in on the religious spectrum.
As Sharon Freundel, Managing Director for JEIC, explains in the introduction to each episode of this new podcast series, “The ‘keystone’ is the central stone at the summit of an arch, locking the whole together. JEIC’s mission aims to catalyze radical improvement in Jewish Day schools, and this series highlights some of the educators and leaders who are doing that, one bold idea at a time.
Originally recorded during the February 2023 Prizmah conference in Denver in an interview format, we’ve intentionally edited each episode to be roughly 10 minutes in length so that you can listen to them on a morning walk, during your commute, or for an afternoon dose of inspiration. We’ll be releasing the episodes monthly
As part of the brain making meaning out of reality through the various senses, interpreted information flows through various areas of the brain. When sensing comforting impulses, the amygdala fuels the release of certain hormones, like the rewarding chemical, dopamine, to help the brain “remember” how to return to that environment.
Founding Director of the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge, Rabbi Shmuel Feld discusses how the understanding the relationship between the amygdala and learning benefits both the learning process and how students approach their connections to Judaism.
Imagine if Judaic Studies classes became a place where students could grow their critical literacy and literary skills using sound pedagogy while simultaneously deepening their Jewish identity by learning valuable social-emotional skills through the lens of Jewish values.
Amira Soleimani and Laura Pasek of Hillel Day School in Detroit have developed the Tanach Sadna approach, which balances Jewish values, literacy skills, and academic rigor. They blend best practices from reading pedagogy with a Jewish values-based approach to social-emotional learning, embedded in the context of our shared biblical narrative.
As we journey through the story of our personal and collective redemption this year on Passover, we can also reflect on the Jewish classrooms filled with students. How are we guiding them toward their personal bests? How are we ensuring that they feel part of our grand nation?
We have an obligation to take individual action and we have an equal calling to act on behalf of the community. Director of Operating Programs for the Mayberg Foundation, Amian Kelemer, explores the balance between personalizing learning for our students that stimulates their own intrinsic motivation and creating a unique and shared process that ensures the relevance of the lived Jewish experience. Each student needs to grow in order to fulfill their own particular purpose and each student needs to participate in a communal context.
