Building Jewish Education
The year 2020 marks the centennial of a remarkable Jewish educational initiative. In October 1920, Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) opened the Freies Judisches Lehrhaus (The Jewish House of Free Study), in Frankfurt. This adult education institute was designed to share Jewish learning with a generation not well versed in Jewish texts, serving as a modern “beit midrash” (house of study).
Join Builders of Jewish Education (BJE) in the #BJEBuildingKindness Challenge!
What: a social media event where kids and teens can showcase acts of kindness and ways they are bettering the world!
When: July 20-24, 2020!
Many Jewish Day Schools and part-time Religious Schools have, in recent years, embraced Project Based Learning, a creative and engaging educational approach. Project Based Learning calls on students to investigate and respond to a complex question, challenge or real-world problem. Through collaborative investigation, students gain knowledge and skills; often, they are asked to share what they have learned with a larger audience.
When the Covid-19 pandemic forced closure of all schools, the Jewish school community in Los Angeles didn’t have to look far for support – BJE has had professional networks in place for years, including day school, early childhood and part-time religious schools.
Almost immediately, BJE began to convene the various professional networks by zoom, and participation is at an all-time high.
It is a centuries-old habit to try to reduce wisdom into short aphorisms or sound bites (“do unto others…”), and to understand or label our experience of major calamities in a similar fashion (“when the going gets tough…”).
When BJE’s March of the Living program was cancelled due to the pandemic, the staff worked quickly in order to provide the 220 participating teens with a meaningful experience despite the disappointment. After participating in a virtual Yom HaShoah program with the survivors who would have traveled with the group, Ann Mizrahi from de Toledo HS and Sabrina Cohensedgh from Milken reached out to BJE’s Liat Vorobiev and Maya Aharon to ask how they could be more involved with the program.
Recently, I attended (via Zoom) a BJE professional development program for directors of education of part-time Religious Schools. As school year 2019-2020 drew to a close, educators were focused on “big picture” thinking, looking ahead to next year. In a keynote address, Dr. Miriam Heller Stern, Director of the Schools of Education of Hebrew Union College, spoke of nurturing creative Jewish sensibilities through education.
BJE: Builders of Jewish Education
6505 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 300
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(323) 761-8605
