Section archive - Israel Education

We are excited to announce that applications for the spring 2019 semester of The Nachshon Project are now open. Applications will be accepted through October 15, 2018. The Nachshon Project, an endeavor of Legacy Heritage, cultivates future Jewish leaders by encouraging outstanding college students to pursue professional careers in service to the Jewish community. Fellows spend the second semester of their junior year of college, studying abroad tuition-free, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Together with a cohort of peers, Fellows are provided with an in-depth Israel education, an immersion in Jewish texts, exposure to a variety of Jewish beliefs, and a wider understanding of Jewish career opportunities.

The Center for Israel Education (CIE) has trained thousands of educators with effective strategies for teaching Israeli history, politics, economics, and culture. Now, through a generous grant, CIE is able to extend our impact to meet schools where they are and guide them to achieve new successes in the teaching and learning of Israel. Over the next three years, CIE will mentor the faculty of eight schools to enhance their teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogic approaches leading them to create new impactful Israel curricula for all ages. We will be visiting schools in the U.S and Canada to deliver customized professional development and resources for teachers of Judaics, Hebrew, social studies, science, art, and more.

The current field of Israel engagement has been significantly challenged by young North American Jews’ reported alienation from contemporary Israel. Literature in the last decade has addressed this challenge in depth, offering a wide variety of theoretical analyses and recommendations for program development. The present study is the first to thoroughly focus on one of these programs, the young emissaries (shinshinim) program, a joint initiative between the Jewish Agency for Israel and a growing number of Jewish communities around the world.

The thesis has sought to shed light into the relationship between the Jewish Diaspora and Israel through the lenses of the Brazilian Jewish community. Due to the fact that it holds the largest Jewish population of Brazil and hosts numerous prominent Jewish organisations, the state of São Paulo was chosen as the case study of the research. Based on the analysis of publications and websites of those institutions and, mainly, of interviews with the most important leaders of the Jewish organisations in São Paulo, the author has tried to bring to the fore their chief activities concerning Israel. Furthermore, the conduction of semi-structured interviews enabled the identification of attitudes and perceptions of the main Jewish Brazilian leaders towards Israel, as well as their role as members of a significant Jewish Diaspora.