Passover at the University of Texas at Austin this year will feature matzo with a hint of jalapeño. The Haggadahs will be in Hebrew, English and Spanish. The celebration will feature the sounds of a mariachi band, and the taste of guacamole will replace the more familiar maror and charoset. If past years are any…
Thousands of students from around the world head to Israel every year to discover the country and its culture. And what do they learn? “In general, Israel education is about falafel, geography and one directional learning about Israelis,” quipped Shana Zionts, director of student life at Columbia/Barnard Hillel. This winter, a delegation of young adults,…
Less than a decade old, the nascent Hebrew charter school movement is experiencing growth and growing pains. The most visible sign of the movement’s expansion is the appointment of Jon Rosenberg — an experienced civil rights attorney and not-for-profit manager — to be the first president and CEO of the Hebrew Charter School Center, a…
The classrooms that Adam Jerozolim visits each week don’t have neat rows of desks and chairs. There are no teachers standing at the front. Instead, he said, they each “look like a mad scientist’s lab”: computer chips everywhere; a mass of light bulbs, Legos and circuit boards strewn about. The students are huddled around tables,…
Maimonides is trending these days. The 12th century sage, once confined to musty tomes and talmudic study halls, is being brandished in the opinion pages of The New York Times, cited on the airwaves in “This American Life,” and featured in Dara Horn’s latest novel. By some measures, Maimonides is at the height of his…
Shimon Peres / Getty Images Israel’s President Shimon Peres has just secured his second appearance in the Guinness Book of Records. But he missed an opportunity when setting his new record yesterday. I was excited to watch Peres — who is already in the book as oldest head of state — teach the largest ever…
Day school parents can take heart from Mr. Scrubs. “Wish I Was Here,” Zach Braff’s Kickstarter-funded film, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in late January. Fans — especially the 46,520 who helped pay for it to be made — were eagerly awaiting the “Garden State” follow up. And, exactly a decade after Braff’s first…
A few months into his rabbinical studies in Jerusalem in 2012, it struck Benjamin Ross how little Israelis seemed to know about American Jews like him. At the same time, the second-year Hebrew Union College student was mulling over the fraught, distanced relationships American Jews have with Israelis. “Many Americans have no concept of life…
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