pdxkehillahigh

PDX Kehilla High in Jewish Review

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 18:41:32 GMT

Kehilla High launches this fall with AJU course on Israel By ROCKNE ROLL - The Jewish Review

While Jewish Portland has a plethora of options for children’s education, the missing piece has long been formal coursework for high schoolers seeking to further their Jewish education. That’s changing this fall. PDX Kehillah High, an umbrella program for Jewish educational opportunities for Greater Portland-area high school students, is launching with a college-level course on the history and culture of modern Israel through American Jewish University, led locally by Rabbi Gary Oren of Congregation Shaarie Torah. Rabbi Oren explained that AJU’s Jewish Learning Experience program for high school students began in Los Angeles, using the university’s undergraduate accreditation to offer college credit for high school Jewish education programs as a way to keep high school students who weren’t attending Jewish high schools interested in Jewish learning among the many competing demands on students’ time as they prepare for life after high school. “A local rabbi in L.A. said, ‘Listen, the only way I’m going to get my kids to learn Jewish things after b’nai mitzvah is if there’s some big carrots hanging out there,’” Rabbi Oren said. “Something that they see is good for them.” The program launched through six synagogues in Los Angeles, with a catalogue of courses for congregations to choose from to fit their particular students’ needs and interests. The programs is expanding outward this year to a number of other states – Portland will be unique in that its courses will be offered to the entire community rather than just through the educational program of a single synagogue. “That was really important to me because if we want to have impact, then we need to try to help each other, get as many kids as possible involved,” Rabbi Oren said. “That spirit of collaboration and cooperation is needed, and Portland’s a place where that can happen.” The course he’s teaching, titled “Introduction to the People, History, and Culture of Israel,” looks at the leadup to Israeli independence in 1948, the different strains of Zionist movements before, during and since, as well as the lived experiences of Israelis and their Palestinian neighbors. The choice of topic was an important consideration for Rabbi Oren, given what Jewish high school students have experienced in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel. “We live in this time where everything’s kind of upside down, and our kids are facing really hard challenges,” Rabbi Oren said. “The number one antidote to that is education. Do they know who they are? Do they know their own story? Even if they don’t want to talk back to someone else, internally, are they confident in their identity and story? Because you’re not going to stop the outside worldfrom doing crazy things or antisemitic things, but you can build up the Jewish people to be really confident in who they are.” The course is developed by the iCenter in Chicago, North America’s largest foundation for education about Israel, and will meet twice a month from 6:30-8:30 pm on Monday evenings beginning in late October and extending through a closing ceremony on the f irst day of Shavout in June. Upon successful completion, students will receive three transferrable college credits through AJU. Class sessions, which will include dinner, will meet at Portland Jewish Academy in SW Portland. The program is supported by PJA, the Mittleman Jewish Community Center, the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation, the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, the Eastside Jewish Commons and Congregation Shaarie Torah. Rabbi Oren was previously Vice President for Non-Degree-Granting Programming at AJU and credits Jewish educational experiences he took on in his 20s as what truly ignited his love for Judaism and set him on the course he’s on now. “There’s a lot of ways to do this, but my spark came through Jewish learning,” he said. “It’s the stuff that I really love to do. That’s why I’m volunteering to do this.” The hope is that others will join him under the PDX Kehillah High umbrella, developing programs tailored to their interests and expertise and the needs of Portland’s Jewish high school students to create a broad, diverse range of opportunities for those students. “The idea is that kids can go to one central location and find out what’s available to them,” Rabbi Oren explained, “especially non-synagogue kids.” Tuition for “Introduction to the People, History, and Culture of Israel” is $1,300, with generous scholarships available through AJU and PDX Kehillah High, supported by OJCF and the Federation. For more information, email Rabbi Oren at pdxkehillahigh@gmail.com or visit pdxkehillahigh.org.

Can I be successful in High School and JLE?

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 20:29:57 GMT

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AJU AND THE iCENTER PARTNER ON ISRAEL EDUCATION INITIATIVE

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 22:41:52 GMT

AJU AND THE iCENTER PARTNER ON ISRAEL EDUCATION INITIATIVE

American Jewish University and The iCenter for Israel Education announced the launch of an innovative new course on Feb. 12 to deliver college-level Jewish education to high school students.

The initiative marks a significant effort from two prominent Jewish educational institutions to address antisemitism and misinformation in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks. Titled “Understanding Israel: Its History, Culture, and People,” the course will be offered through AJU’s Jewish Learning Experience, which partners with Jewish community organizations to deliver college credit courses to high school students. Through a dynamic, experiential curriculum, “Understanding Israel” will help students explore Jewish history in the region from Zionism to statehood, investigate the impact of wars and peace initiatives on Israel’s borders, analyze Israel’s societal pillars and institutions and discover the lived experiences of Israelis and Palestinians. It will provide a sampling of the diverse people, flavor and arts that enrich Israeli society.

“The post-Oct. 7 environment has sent a clear message to Jewish educators. We need transparent, intellectually rigorous programming for teens about Israel and its complexities,” said Rabbi Carrie Vogel, director of undergraduate initiatives at AJU. “We’re proud to partner with the skilled educators at The iCenter to address this need and provide high-quality, college-level courses that equip students to analyze and understand Israel’s complexities in our changing world.”

The iCenter works with more than 170 academic and institutional partners across North America and Israel to advance the professional field of Israel education by supporting educators, pioneering new educational approaches and promoting a learner-centered philosophy.

“We are delighted to partner with AJU to advance our shared commitment to helping young Jewish students forge meaningful relationships with Israel,” said Anne Lanski, founding CEO of The iCenter. “Drawing from our work with Israel educators across the country and AJU’s unique understanding of the needs of the Jewish community, this course will meet high school students where they’re at with the knowledge, tools, context and experience they need to better understand and relate to Israel.”

JLE In the News

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 22:39:10 GMT

Hebrew/Religious School done differently: Revolutionizing Jewish education for teens

By Rabbi Carrie Vogel

June 28, 2023

The changing landscape of Jewish supplemental education requires communities to offer programs that are both personally meaningful and have clear value

“But you always hated religious school.” This was my parents’ response when I told them, at the age of 21, that I wanted to become a rabbi. To this day, I am honestly not sure if their response reflected their annoyance or relief, thinking about all the time they spent arguing with me about going (likely a bit of both!).

I quickly responded, “I didn’t hate all religious school, I just hated the parts that weren’t very good.” I was lucky to have meaningful and formative Jewish experiences in youth group and NFTY, as well as a collaborative high school program. Those experiences set me on a path to six additional years of Jewish learning, which enabled me to become a rabbi and receive a master of arts in Jewish education. But much to my parents’ surprise, I was essentially agreeing to be in charge of religious schools for the length of my professional career (OK, yes, this is a little reductionist, but it’s how it felt). And now here I am, with 14 years as a professional educator under my walkie-talkie-adorned belt, doing my best to ensure that we don’t offer anything that “isn’t very good.”

Just recently, the Jewish Education Project released new data about supplemental education, and in the first webinar to discuss the report, David Bryfman, who heads the group, began by acknowledging that the religious school model of 30 years ago is not one that fits the reality of our world today. Today’s students and families have different interests and needs. They are busier than we were, and they have different demands placed upon their time. And yet, that doesn’t mean that today’s teens aren’t also seeking a meaningful and formative Jewish experience.

So, when Rabbi Daniel Sher of Kehillat Israel (KI) in Pacific Palisades, Calif., came to me five years ago and said, “I want to create a program where our teens can learn Jewish content with us and earn college credit,” I said, “Yes.”

Immediately, we began to identify all the possible goals:

Teens could earn undergraduate college credit in a class that was formulated as a discussion-based seminar class.
Their Jewish community would be providing them with a low-stress, emotionally and mentally safe space to learn for the sake of learning.
A teen program would be strengthened by increased numbers, as teens enrolled in one program tend to be more likely to participate in other programs.
Teens would engage in adult-level learning that deals with sophisticated topics and challenging content. In turn, teens would see their progressive community as a place that supports and encourages this kind of learning.
Clergy and education teams would deepen their connection with their students.
Parents would be happy that their kids would still want to participate post-b’mitzvah.

We began to work with American Jewish University (AJU) — an accredited institution with experience in academic and community learning — to develop a program that checked all of these boxes. It’s not an accident that this program worked in the first year, with a total of 25 students enrolled in two different classes. Many institutions are searching for “innovative programming,” but we have seen that innovation for its own sake does not work.

Moreover, our teens today are extremely aware of the value of their time and have unlimited amounts of options available for them to decide how to spend it. But because our courses are designed to be personally meaningful with clear extrinsic value, the teens at KI have responded incredibly positively. In its first year, the Jewish Learning Experience (JLE) program at AJU has proven itself as a success, offering relevant and valuable experiences for the teens at KI, achieving each of the goals that Rabbi Sher and I set out from the start. For the upcoming school year, the JLE is expanding to include a handful of other communities in California, before taking the program nationwide in the very near future. My hope with the JLE is to inspire every teen (and teen program) to join us.

And the clearest way to know that it’s working? Our teens (and their parents) are already asking which classes the JLE will offer next fall.

Rabbi Carrie Vogel serves as the director of undergraduate initiatives at American Jewish University, which includes their newly launched Jewish Learning Experience. Prior to joining AJU, Rabbi Vogel served as the director of the Jewish Experience Center at Kehillat Israel. She also serves as a board member for the Association of Reform Jewish Educators.

PDX KEHILLA HIGH will be offering our first course beginning this Fall at the Portland Jewish Academy. Classes will meet twice per month on Monday evenings from 6:30-8:30pm. Dinner will be served.

Jewish Studies 313: Introduction to the History, Culture, and People of Israel - 3.0 credits

Israel’s history, culture and people have always been and will continue to be distinctly nuanced and complex. This course will present historical events and statistics pertaining to Israel and teach students how to critically analyze a wide range of subject matter, perspectives, and experiences. Topics include the founding of the State of Israel, a timeline of Jewish history in the region, the various versions of Zionism, and the path to becoming an independent country. The course will also explore the multiple wars and attempts at peace which have changed the evolving, contested boundaries of the country. A survey of the lived experiences of Israelis and Palestinians from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds as well as the food, culture, language, art, and poetry which have contributed to a multifaceted society will be discussed.