The Battle Over California’s Ethnic Studies Curriculum

By Naomi Friedland June 23, 2022

While major Zionist organizations lobby to change California’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, many Jewish students and scholars across California have a different outlook on the issue – and are being overlooked in the debate.

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The Jewish Educator’s Distance-Learning Handbook

By Rena Yehuda Newman April 9, 2021

Best-practices gleaned from a new generation of Jewish Educators, making the Zoom makom meaningful.

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Diaspora English: Saying Goodbye to Students in Tel Aviv

By Daniel Crasnow February 23, 2021

“I’ll never forget seeing the kids light up as they are given the chance to work with me. I’ll never forget hearing them repeat new words under their breaths in order to memorize them. And I’ll never forget having to say ‘hello’ to twenty kids between the time I walked into school, and the moment I reached my classroom.”

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The New Jewish Educator-Activists of Instagram

By Ellanora Lerner January 20, 2021

A new type of Jewish education is going beyond the halls of Hebrew School and straight to the hearts of young diaspora Jews.

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Shouting “I am a Jewish Educator!”: A Judaism Unbound Fellowship Reflection

By Rebecca Lubow December 22, 2020

“Too many young Jews receive the message from our communities that we aren’t Jewish in the right way….That’s why New Voices Magazine’s work to connect young Jewish artists to each other and give our stories and ideas a platform is such a radical project.”

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Jewish Schools, Stop the Statements on Policy

By Jackson Richman February 10, 2017

Although President Donald Trump’s temporary immigration ban has been halted by a federal court in Washington state, Jewish educational institutions shouldn’t be publicly sitting in judgment on issues that do not pertain to the Jewish community or Israel. At the expense of possibly furthering division in the Jewish community, it is best for such institutions…

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To Go to Class or Not to Go to Class?

By Daniel Levine October 21, 2016

Originally published in Ha’Am. There is perhaps no decision more representative of the difficulties of being a practicing Jewish college student than the quintessential question of whether or not to attend class during Chag. To me, this is not a question of grades or even the inconvenience of having to spend long, sleepless nights catching…

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Why progressive Jews should be outraged about Hasidic schools

By Amram Altzman April 12, 2016

When news broke back in September of the systematic and egregious lack of regulation of secular studies curricula in Hasidic and Haredi schools, there was little outcry from the rest of the Jewish community over the fact that a large segment of our population — already growing up cut off from the rest of the world…

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“If not us, then who:” ‘Nana’ aims to help millennials relate to the Holocaust

By Alexa Kempner January 28, 2016

From a young age, Serena Dykman, a young European filmmaker, has known about the Holocaust. As the granddaughter of three survivors, she not only received a school education on the Holocaust, but a very personal one as well. She has witnessed the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe with the attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium…

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Holocaust education needs greater depth

By Alexa Kempner October 15, 2015

At some point in our school careers, we learn about the horrors of the Holocaust. But what information is presented to us in that academic setting? Perhaps the teacher delves into a brief history ranging from January 1933, when Hitler became chancellor of Germany, to May 1945, when the Nazis surrendered.  Maybe we read Anne…

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What Israel education in Jewish day schools really looks like

By Nicole Zelniker October 7, 2015

With over two hundred thousand students enrolled at more than 800 institutions, Jewish day schools are becoming more and more prevalent in the American Jewish community. That’s two hundred thousand students learning about Israel from an early age — but what are these students actually learning about Israel? That’s what “Between The Lines,” a documentary…

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This Week, I Have Nothing to Say

By Amram Altzman December 8, 2014

  This past week has left me, and many others, searching for answers to questions I only recently realized I had. What follows is a series of thoughts that I had over the last ten days. Privilege, at perhaps its most basic and functional iteration, is the ability to wake up in the morning and…

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From Italy, A Bridge to Anne Frank

By Sofia Domino October 1, 2014

My name is Sofia, I’m 26 years old, and I live in Italy. Like any young woman, I have many interests: I love traveling, reading, listening to music, eating, and living new experiences. I have been to the Unites States several times, and also to France and Spain, and I also lived in London for…

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The Reform Movement Must Apply its Values to Israel

By Hannah Ehlers July 31, 2014

Early in my Jewish education, I was taught that, as Jews and as human beings living in an imperfect world, we are obligated to stand up and speak out in the face of injustice. However small or large the perceived wrong, and despite our shaking legs and cracking voices or how powerful and vocal the…

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Those Awkward Moments

By David G. July 25, 2014

There is this belief that the rich and famous have these amazingly exciting lives, making some of us regular people want to live vicariously through them in the form of memoirs, tabloids, and TV documentaries. Our own lives seem boring in comparison to the recorded ups and downs of celebrities. With less than three decades…

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