By Barry W. Holtz
In the early years of the 20th century, Samson Benderly stood with the legendary figures of American Jewish life: He was recruited to New York by Judah Magnes; he knew Henrietta Szold and Barnett Brickner; he battled Solomon Schechter; he met regularly with his benefactor, Jacob Schiff, and his closest friend was Mordecai Kaplan. Indeed, Kaplan wrote of Benderly, “He is to me the most positive force in Jewish life today.”
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By Michael J. Solender
When biochemist Aaron Ciechanover surveys the education landscape in his native Israel, he is invariably disappointed by the diminishing emphasis he sees being placed upon math and science curricula and by the limited access to higher learning granted to those who can’t afford it. Ciechanover shared with two colleagues the 2004 Nobel Prize in chemistry for their discovery of a process by which proteins are tagged for destruction within a cell.
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By Larry Tye
Most American Jews who travel make at least a token attempt to visit a synagogue or otherwise to taste the Jewish flavor of whatever land they are in. But few have the time, instinct or know how to faithfully follow in the footsteps of their forbears, especially when those trails lead across a continent. Fewer still pay heed to Judaism’s Sephardic as opposed to its Ashkenazi roots.Read More
By Daniella Wexler
Wearing a funny hat and spewing bad biblical puns, Aaron Friedman didn’t look or sound like your typical Moses as he took to the stage during a recent performance by the Bible Players theater group.
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By E.B. Solomont
When Len Lipkin and his wife, Jill Maderer, a Reform rabbi in Philadelphia, started thinking about kindergarten for their son last year, they chose a Quaker school. “It’s tough,” sighed Lipkin, explaining why they didn’t go the Jewish day school route. “The question really became, do you need to have [Judaism] in every piece of your life in order to foster a Jewish identity?”
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By Renee Ghert-Zand
For some Jewish day schools, there is no teaching Yiddishkeit without Yiddish. Buoyed by the Yiddish renaissance of the past two decades, which has produced an increased interest in university Yiddish programs, a renewed interest in Yiddish theater and even the advent of Yiddish heavy metal bands, these schools have held steadfast to their Yiddishist roots and missions.
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By Rabbi Joy D. Levitt
There’s one thing you can say about Jewish parents: They know what they want for their children. They want excellence, they want attention, they want warmth and they want preparation for what comes next. They demand it — and they usually get it, whether it’s for a baby yoga class or for an elementary school.
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By Kate Fridkis
Not all homeschooled children are evangelical Christians. Kate Fridkis cuts through the stereotypes and writes about growing up Jewish and homeschooled.
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By Claudia Z. Carlin
Two flights above the only synagogue in Aix-en-Provence, the famed birthplace of Paul Cézanne, a bit of Jewish educational history is unfolding. Two years ago, l’Ecole Juive d’Aix en Provence, or EJAP, became the first trilingual elementary school in France to include classes in Hebrew and in English.
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By Claudia Z. Carlin
Inaugurated 40 years ago by Darius Milhaud, the only Jewish cultural center in Aix-en-Provence is named after the famous composer and native son. At the time, it was built as a synagogue, yeshiva and social club for a community growing exponentially thanks to waves of emigrants from North Africa. Close to the Rotonde, the fabled fountain at the heart of the city, it rests on the site of a former Jewish cemetery abandoned in the 19th century.
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