We Teach Who We Are: A Practical Guide for Classroom Educators
Teaching About Israel in Times of Crisis Table of Contents Introduction: The Educator at the Center Chapter 1: Understanding the Changed Landscape The New Reality The Ripple Effects Opportunities Within Crisis Chapter 2: The Educator’s Journey—Personal and Professional Integration Acknowledging Your Own Experience The Professional-Personal Interface Modeling Resilience Chapter 3: Rethinking Educational Objectives Core Questions…
The Global Jewish-Israel Syntheses Imagine: We Are All Israeli
I was thinking, growing up, my world was a tapestry of hyphenated identities. There was my Russian-American friend, my Italian-American…
Colonization vs. Decolonization
Historical Patterns of Conquest and Return in the Middle East The narrative of colonization and decolonization has become central to…
The Voice That Calls: Jewish Awakening in Our Time
Imagine being awakened at 4 AM by a voice calling you to something urgent, something that cannot wait for a…
To Occupy or Not To Occupy Gaza
The morning of October 7, 2023, marked a watershed moment in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hamas militants breached the Gaza-Israel…
In order for history to last forever, it must become personal. We wonder why there are those who care less about Israel. How could it be that after 2,000 years of tears and hopes for a return to Zion, and after an unheard of return in all of human history, that there could anyone in…
NEW YORK – Four years after tying the knot, Jewish National Fund-USA (JNF) and Alexander Muss High School in Israel (AMHSI-JNF) have given birth to their first child, “Roots Israel,” a service learning adventure in Israel for young people. Crafted in response to the growing communal needs for Jewish teen engagement, Israel advocacy and community service, on this journey,…
Living a Jewish life includes living within a particular framework of values and memories (i.e. we were slaves in Egypt), rituals and experiences. Passover, a microcosm of Jewish life, requires a set of guidelines in preparation for the Festival including the cleaning of “Hametz,” dietary constraints, and of course the ‘Seder,’ an order accompanied by…
Everywhere I go I hear it from everyone over and over again: We’re losing our kids!They don’t care! They are not prepared! They don’t care about Israel! Kids these days don’t understand! We’re losing, we’re losing, we’re losing! I’m like: Whoa! No way! How could that be? I mean how could it be that this…
Israel Education, Israel Studies and Israel Advocacy must be integrated into A Continuum of learning and engagement – an Israel Continuum. Young people are sophisticated, they are inquisitive, and they are thirsty for purpose and responsibility. At the Alexander Muss High School in Israel student surveys reflect a positive reaction to our students’ opportunity to be independent,…
Transmission of Jewish continuity and Israel connectivity does not take place in the formal classroom setting on its own. Israel and Jewish education must include an experiential component; it is through experientialism that our children explore and discover meaning that they can connect to. Transmission to the recipient in a more practical – less theoretical…