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A study commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League found that, post-October 7, nearly 40% of Jewish college students feel uncomfortable with others knowing they are Jewish, due to the near-weekly college campus protests across North America. These protests have too often subjected Jewish, and especially Zionist, students to hate and vitriol, directed at their very identities.
Joshua J. Freundel, a research fellow at Harvard Law School, wants to know, How has Jewish day school prepared students to confront these tensions?
A teacher pipeline issue continues to grow, not only in the world at large, but in the yeshiva and Jewish day school field. School and field leaders are struggling with recruiting, training and retaining talented educators. As a response, Prizmah and the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge (JEIC) created the Jewish Day School Educator Pipeline Working Group to investigate current and previous initiatives, explore new ideas, and plan for the future.
Before Passover this year, many wondered how we should commemorate the ongoing imprisonment of 133 innocent Jewish lives and the unconscionable murder of 1,200+ Israelis. As the conflict continues, and day schools approach the season of “yamim”: Yom Hashoah, Yom Hazikaron, Yom Ha’atzmaut, and Yom Yerushalayim, do we expand the commemoration of Yom Hashoah to include more recent egregious examples of blatant Jew-hatred? JEIC Managing Director Sharon Freundel explores this topic and offers her insight.
How do we balance our Jewish identities in a world that most often doesn't pause for Shabbat?
Rabbi Tzvi Hametz, director of education technology at the Berman Hebrew Academy, tells the story of how his students put their Judaism first when their robotics championship meet was scheduled to take place on Shabbat.
American Jewish day school students face multiple challenges in their Hebrew reading and comprehension mastery journey. Rabbi Shmuel Feld explores these and offers several potential solutions in our latest blog post.
Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies Chief Education and Educational Training Officer Aviva Lauer offers educators meaningful ways to help their students – and themselves – keep alive the memory of those we lost on October 7th.
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.
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.
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.
