Section archive - Israel Education

Some 200 events in communities and synagogues across North America during the month of May are marking Birthright Israel Month, which celebrates Taglit-Birthright Israel sending nearly 300,000 Jewish young adults on the ten day trip and raises awareness for its new goal of sending 51,000 participants annually – or one in every two young Jewish adults – beginning 2013. Birthright Israel Month was launched with a Mega Event in New York City on May 4, 2011 with over 1,000 alumni and 200 officials and guests attending. The month includes events in cities across North America for Birthright Israel alumni, special Birthright Shabbat celebrations at more than 100 synagogues, visits to communities by IDF soldiers who participated in Birthright Israel trips and special donor functions.

Ryan Torok writes, in a Jewish Journal article, about how teachers in Israel bring Israel closer to California day school students by teaching them year-long videoconferenced distance classes. Jerusalem teacher, Semadar Goldstein, brings Israel into her ninth grade Shalhevet Day School classroom every week, covering topics from meaningful Israel experiences to polarizing topics such as IDF soldiers' ideological insubordination. The Shalhevet course is run by the Remote Teacher Program, established by the Lookstein Center for Jewish Education at Bar-Ilan University, via two-way video conferencing from Israel, onto the classroom’s whiteboard. A camera and microphones mounted above the whiteboard allows Goldstein to interact with the students.

iCamp Kallah, sponsored by The iCenter, is a three-day gathering, a festival of innovation and learning for Jewish educators, lay leaders and professionals who are passionate about bringing Israel alive for the next generation and who want to learn, create and stretch their thinking. iCamp will be held at the Hyatt Lodge, Oakbrook, IL on August 14-16, 2011. iCamp is aimed at those who seek to understand Israel and Jewish education as a holistic enterprise: formal and informal, cognitive and affective, an activity of mind and heart.

Teaching Israel is a complex endeavor in today's world where the founding myths of Israel no longer appear to capture the hearts and minds of American Jews as they did a generation ago. As a result, a new way of speaking about and conceptualizing Israel education is evolving among researchers, program providers, policy makers, and many teachers. Through an in-depth case study, this paper explores whether and how this new way of thinking and speaking about Israel actually plays out in a community Jewish day high school that espouses a commitment to critical thinking and pluralistic education. The analysis is informed by a conceptual framework that argues that a meaningful and holistic approach to Israel education demands critical engagement with both the sacred vision and complex realities of Israel, past, present, and future as well as the literature on pluralism in Jewish educational settings. The key question threaded throughout the article is: How does a pluralistic Jewish curriculum navigate between fostering open inquiry and supporting a commitment to Israel and the Jewish people?