I grew up illiterate and uneducated and I am a graduate of a premier Hasidic Jewish Day school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Hasidic Day schools are similar to Sunday schools, with one big difference — they run all week long. I learned nothing relevant to the 21st century modern workforce at school. At age 26,…
Menachem Bombach is waiting behind the gate outside his school building on a dusty hilltop: long black coat, short beard, thin-rimmed glasses, the look of a refined yeshiva student, hands folded in front of him. He smiles and says, “Welcome, welcome!” It’s hard to believe that this gentleman’s home has become the site of frequent…
The sheet was purple. The title, written in the typeface Comic Sans, was “Ethnic & Family Heritage Social Studies Unit.” The sheet explained that the students would be exploring their “family’s ethnic heritage and the cultural diversity found in our world.” It went on to ask our daughter to list the countries her ancestors were…
In many ways, Jewish education has remained unchanged for centuries. Students and teachers read texts together, and then they analyze them. But the 21st century has become an age of an unprecedented amount of information, all downloadable in seconds. In just a few decades, it’s already changed the way we think and absorb the world….
When we find out that the local primary school to which we are about to send our son is affiliated with a Christian Methodist church, we begin to worry what it will do to our child’s malnourished Jewish identity. The school has a friendly atmosphere, claims to be tolerant of all religions and views, and…
If you walk into Monsey’s Evergreen kosher supermarket, somewhere among the extensive schnitzel varieties and Shabbos candy treats, you’ll see a single children’s book for sale. Zai Gezunt! is the Yiddish translation of Artscroll’s Let’s Stay Safe, written by Bracha Goetz and illustrated by Tova Leff, a picture book that talks about children’s safety of…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A new program in an Israeli school network will allow its students to graduate a year early if they agree to perform an extra year of community service or continue immediately to higher education. The program by the Israel Sci-Tech Schools educational network adds an extra month to each school year beginning…
Dear Betsy DeVos (and the Department of Education and Trump Administration), You don’t know me, but I am one of the billions of people who live in a world where sexual harassment, sexual violence, and relationship abuse are a reality no matter our age, gender, race, sexual orientation, or political affiliation. I feel incredibly angry…
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