Language Matters:
The current state of Israel education often emphasizes advocacy over education, creating a reactive rather than proactive approach. This paper argues for evolving Israel experiential learning to incorporate diverse opinions, create spaces for dialogue, and offer shared experiences that advance both universal and particularly Jewish values.
Sinai Strategies: Education Diplomacy in Action
Sinai Strategies is a think and do agency that seeks to advance purpose driven global causes as a cultural interpreter…
Isra-el: Struggling with Purpose – An Educational Framework
Key aspects of this new framework include: The article frames this approach as “new-old” – drawing from ancient traditions and…
A Passover Letter: From Sinai to Zion
As we prepare for this year’s Passover Seder, we reflect on the profound journey from slavery to freedom that defines…
Am Yisrael Chai: It’s not a slogan, it is a way of life
I remember growing up as a kid in Brooklyn singing the Am Yisrael Chai chant, we’d sing it with great…
Exodus describes the Israelites as a “stiff necked people”; I prefer a “Resilient People”. Resilience is an individual’s tendency to cope with stress and adversity. This coping may result in the individual “bouncing back” to a previous state of normal functioning, or using the experience of exposure to adversity to function better than expected. Resilience…
Yitro, (Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law), a priest of Median “…heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel…” freeing them from slavery and guiding them through the Sinai wilderness (Ex. 18:1). This notion of hearing/knowing all that God has done is magnified here in Israel throughout the Jewish calendar. Since making Aliyah this…
Jacob was to be known as Isra-el.”…כי שרית עם אלוקים ועם אנשים, ותוכל…” (בראשית לב:כט) – ‘Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for thou hast struggled with God and with humanity, and hast prevailed.’ (Genesis 32:29). Isra-el struggles with God and with humanity. We, the People of Isra-el, maintain that struggle/interaction…
בשבת הקרוב, שבת שירה – אנו מוצאים חיזוק והשראה דרך שתי דמויות מרכזיות: מרים הנביאה ודבורה הנביאה ושופטת. כשחוצים בני ישראל את ים סוף, חוצים את קו העבדות לחירות. זה בעצם תחילת התפתחות בני ישראל –> לעם ישראל, “וַתִּקַּח מִרְיָם הַנְּבִיאָה אֲחוֹת אַהֲרֹן, אֶת-הַתֹּף–בְּיָדָהּ; וַתֵּצֶאןָ כָל-הַנָּשִׁים אַחֲרֶיהָ, בְּתֻפִּים וּבִמְחֹלֹת. כא וַתַּעַן לָהֶם, מִרְיָם: שִׁירוּ לַה’…”…
This Shabbat, Shabbat Shira, we find strength and hope in two strong women: the Prophetess Miriam (sister of Moses and Aharon) and the Prophetess AND Judge Deborah. In the former, upon crossing the Sea of Reeds, “Miriam…took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.…