Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Hebrew Charter School Set To Open in Minneapolis

A new Hebrew charter school is scheduled to open in suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul in September.

According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Agamim Classical Academy in Hopkins, Minn., will be the first U.S. public school to offer a focus on both the Hebrew language and classical instruction, a pedagogical approach “that emphasizes grammar, rhetoric and logic.”

It also will be the first Hebrew charter school to open in the Midwest. Hebrew charter schools are tuition free and open to all, but they teach Hebrew language and, in many cases, also offer instruction about Jewish history and culture.

There are currently 12 Hebrew charter schools in five states and Washington, the first of which — the Ben Gamla Charter School Hollywood — opened in Florida in 2007. Agamim will be the seventh Hebrew charter school affiliated with the New York-based Hebrew Charter School Center, which opened its first school in Brooklyn in 2009 and is funded in large part by Birthright Israel co-founder Michael Steinhardt.

Agamim will open with kindergarten through third-grade classes, eventually continuing through eighth grade. Its principal, Miranda Morton, told the Star-Tribune that the classical approach dovetails “extraordinarily well” with Hebrew.

The Hebrew Charter School Center’s CEO, Jon Rosenberg, agreed.

“The Hebrew language requires a lot of rigor,” he was quoted as saying by the Star-Tribune. “It requires kids to learn a new code, a new language. The idea that classical education requires a lot of rigor makes a good fit with Hebrew, which also has a high but appropriate level of complexity.”

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.