An innovative lawsuit in Quebec offers an intriguing model for reforming the substandard secular education provided in many Hasidic communities. For years it’s been well known that many Hasidic yeshivas in New York fall far short of the state’s education department requirement that private school curricula be “substantially equivalent” to those in public schools. As…
It was ironic, to say the least, that it took coming to an oil-rich Arab emirate to get me to lead my first Rosh Hashanah service. Forty-five years ago I had earned Conservative rabbinic ordination from New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary. But this was the first time I had ever used it. I had turned,…
While purveyors of childhood Jewish education as a whole struggle with enrollment and relevance, a small number have become pioneering practitioners of “digital badging,” a new pedagogical model in which learners in a wide variety of learning environments earn digital badges that indicate their accomplishments, skills or knowledge. With help from associations like the Bill…
It happened when I made my first visit to the former concentration camps of Auschwitz. I had seen the iconic words “Arbeit macht frei” before in photos and movies, as well as at the main entrance gate to Birkenau, and had learned and read about what happened there. Growing up in Germany, I considered myself…
A new effort underway in Denver, backed by a wide-ranging coalition of Jewish organizations, hopes to use modern marketing techniques to increase enrollment at early childhood education centers and, in the process, lure a new generation of young and sometimes leery families back into Jewish life. The goals of the $810,000 initiative, led by the…
Several suspects were arrested in the suspected arson attack on a joint Arab-Jewish school in Jerusalem. The suspects were arrested a week ago, shortly after a fire was set in the classroom of the Max Rayne Hand In Hand Jerusalem School. On Sunday, the Petach Tikvah Magistrate’s Court lifted a media gag order on the…
A lapsed haredi Orthodox Jew is suing the Quebec government for $1.25 million for not enforcing provincial education guidelines that he says left him virtually illiterate and unemployable. Yonanan Lowen, 36, attended two still-operating illegal haredi Tosh yeshivas north of Montreal and spoke only in Yiddish. He says he never learned to read or write…
At least 1,000 Palestinians will receive a free university education in Venezuela. The president of the Republic of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, welcomed 119 Palestinian students who will be trained in the field of medicine through the new Yasser Arafat Scholarship Program, and announced the expansion of the program. “We will train at least 1,000 doctors,…
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