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MOFET JTEC Portal Newsletter
Dear Subscriber,
We are delighted to send you the latest issue of The MOFET JTEC Portal resource listing.
The current bulletin contains a number of items examining the philosophy of Jewish education along with items describing some visionary Jewish learning initiatives and much more.
We would like to bring to your attention that registration for the second semester of studies at The MOFET Institute's Online Academy (March-June, 2015) has commenced. The Online Academy offers full study programs in the fields of "Teaching Hebrew as an Additional Language" and "Information and Communication Technologies in Education". In addition to these programs, the Academy offers a selection of enrichment courses in English in the fields of "Teaching Jewish Studies" and "Teaching English as a Foreign Language", as well as a set of courses that are held in Spanish.
Mofet International is also offering an online four-session seminar on "Aspects and Tools for Collaborative Learning on the Internet" in February for anyone who is keen to enrich his/her knowledge of the methods and tools of online education. Get more details here.
Enjoy your reading, invite your friends to subscribe to the newsletter and let us hear from you,
Reuven Werber
The MOFET JTEC Portal Team
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Please note: a complete list of recent additions to the portal follows the Featured Items.
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 Rosenak Teaching Jewish Values
Rosenak’s Teaching Jewish Values (1986) is perhaps his most accessible book about Jewish education. After diagnosing the “diseases” of Jewish education, he endorses “teaching Jewish values” as the curricular strategy most likely to succeed given the chasm which divides traditional Jewish subject matter and the milieu in which Jewish education takes place—e.g., the values of home and peer group. A close analysis of the book reveals cracks in his commitment to Jewish values, and I explore alternatives to values education he himself presents, such as acquisition of norms or learning the “language of being Jewish.”
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 Israelis from across the Political and Religious Spectrum Join a National Conversation about the Tanakh, on the Website 929
Launched over Hanukkah, 929 is a $12 million Israeli initiative to turn the Tanakh into a national conversation. Drawing its name from the 929 chapters of the Hebrew Bible, the project aims to get hundreds of thousands of Israelis from all walks of life to complete the corpus over three-and-a-half years by covering five chapters a week. The hub of the enterprise is its state-of-the-art website, where readers can find commentary from a wide array of contributors, from celebrated secular authors like Etgar Keret and A.B. Yehoshua, to spiritual leaders like ultra-Orthodox former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau and progressive trailblazer Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum.
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 The Israelis and the Jewish People Conference
The Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education in collaboration with Beit Hatfutsot is convening a conference on The Israelis and the Jewish People. The conference, to be held at Beit Hatfutsot on February 9th 2015, will address the Challenges of Peoplehood in Israeli Society – from Vision to Practice and is anticipated to attract 200 participants.
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 Eleven Hundred French Jewish High School Students Celebrate Hanukkah in Jerusalem
Eleven hundred high school seniors from twenty-five Jewish schools across France celebrated the third night of Hanukkah (Thursday, December 18, 2014) in Jerusalem. Participants enjoyed performances by Israeli singer-songwriter Yonatan Razel and IDF Chief Cantor Lt. Col. Shai Abramson, accompanied by the IDF Rabbinate Troupe. Bac Bleu Blanc (“High School Seniors in Blue and White”) is a program run by The Jewish Agency for Israel, with the support of Keren Hayesod-UIA, that brings French Jewish high school seniors to Israel on a one-week educational trip every winter.
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 Whatever Happened to Hebrew Day Schools?
Since the end of the summer, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in two day-long meetings dealing with Hebrew in day schools and other parts of our Jewish educational system. Both meetings, though forward-looking in their focus, reflected what seemed to be a shared sense among participants that Hebrew language learning and teaching—despite some notable bright spots—generally faces an uphill struggle in our schools. The problem is not one of lack of good curricula or pedagogic knowledge, though there certainly are concerns about finding and preparing an adequate supply of capable teachers. Rather, again and again, participants in the conversations pointed to a “crisis of confidence and commitment”: the lack of a clear sense of purpose and growing questioning from parents, students and even school leadership as to whether the time and energy devoted to teaching Hebrew could be better spent elsewhere.
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