Independent Jewish Sunday School
I invite you to take a look at the Boston-area Jewish Education Program. This is an independent, 4-hour weekly program for 2nd-7th grade that is unaffiliated with any synagogue or denomination and is held (although independent of) at Brandeis University. The BJEP, and others like it, accommodate families that want a Jewish education without the attachment to a synagogue. Many of the children of such families would not receive a Jewish education at all without a program of this type.
My question is this: Is an education discrete from a synagogue a viable option? I think it is great that families that would otherwise not enroll at a supplementary educational program at a synagogue are finding a suitable alternative. However, is Jewish education without clergical attachment sufficient?
Pros:
- Because there are no synagogue dues, the cost is kept low
- The teachers are all undergraduate Brandeis students, which offers an energy and vitality not usually found among the traditional Jewish supplementary school
- It is a place where families who shied away from denominations and synagogue pressures can find refuge
Cons:
- While they advocate learning beyond B'nei Mitzvah, they do not offer post-B'nei Mitzvah education
- Without any denomination, religious praxis may be unclear and potentially confusing
- Family guidance from a Rabbi is unavailable because, well, there is no Rabbi.
Perhaps this is too liberal of an option. Is this too deviant from tradition?
Here is an article from a 2009 edition of the Jewish Advocate
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ira Wise on -
My concern is only tangentially with the lack of clergy. My bigger concern is the lack of community. While I applaud providing for those who cannot or do not wish to find a synagogue home, I fear that this serves to commoditize the Bar Mitzvah in the most cynical way clothed in the guise of serving the disaffected.
Becoming a Bar/Bat Mitzvah should be about a young man or woman beginning to take their place in the adult community. As described, this program seems to be a way to tag the B'nei Mitzvah base without scoring the run. It is another activity ending in a trophy that is not necessarily earned, since there is no stated intention to complete the act - entering the community.
This makes Jewish education an activity on par with soccer, the school play or dance class. You enroll, pay, drop your kid off the prescribed number of days per week. At the end the parents attend the recital and celebrate the accomplishment as a family. And when you age out, you move on to another endeavor.
I don't see the advantage of accommodating the "need" to claim connection without actually being connected. The only difference between this and a "faux mitzvah" (covered a few years ago in the NY Times, there seems to be some evidence of non-Jews having a celebration that directly and deliberately mirrors the Bar Mitzvah party) is that the child is actually Jewish.
I am open to alternative models. I embrace them. This is not an alternative model. It is Dollar Store imitation of Jewish practice.
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Permalink Reply by Erica Korman on -
Thank you for your input, Ira. I was initially disturbed by this program. I think any Jewish educational program must have strong, non-compromising boundaries forming it.Taking a communal rite-of-passage outside of a structured community is a dangerous step. I agree it further commoditizes the Bar Mitzvah, which has long been practiced as a spectacle landmark event in many communities.
On the other hand, supporters of this type of program could argue that there is a defined community. It consists of the support from those that are also involved with the school. The other students and families are the kehilla and the principal, or whomever is at the highest leadership position, is the "Rabbi," in this case the adviser and head educator. It would be great if someone who has experience with this type of organization could provide their input.
Ira Wise said:
My concern is only tangentially with the lack of clergy. My bigger concern is the lack of community. While I applaud providing for those who cannot or do not wish to find a synagogue home, I fear that this serves to commoditize the Bar Mitzvah in the most cynical way clothed in the guise of serving the disaffected.
Becoming a Bar/Bat Mitzvah should be about a young man or woman beginning to take their place in the adult community. As described, this program seems to be a way to tag the B'nei Mitzvah base without scoring the run. It is another activity ending in a trophy that is not necessarily earned, since there is no stated intention to complete the act - entering the community.
This makes Jewish education an activity on par with soccer, the school play or dance class. You enroll, pay, drop your kid off the prescribed number of days per week. At the end the parents attend the recital and celebrate the accomplishment as a family. And when you age out, you move on to another endeavor.
I don't see the advantage of accommodating the "need" to claim connection without actually being connected. The only difference between this and a "faux mitzvah" (covered a few years ago in the NY Times, there seems to be some evidence of non-Jews having a celebration that directly and deliberately mirrors the Bar Mitzvah party) is that the child is actually Jewish.
I am open to alternative models. I embrace them. This is not an alternative model. It is Dollar Store imitation of Jewish practice.
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Permalink Reply by Ira Wise on
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My one issue with the idea that this type of school is a community is its transitory nature. It has an expiration date: the end of formal education of the youngest child in a family. It also lacks a parent modeling component. It has only minimal opportunities - as I see it - for parents to model the behaviors of being part of an adult Jewish community. It makes the focus of Judaism pediatrics.
Metaphor 1: I grew up playing with my grandfather's tzitzit during services. My son grew up playing with mine. Whose will these kids play with?
Metaphor 2: When my parents joined the temple for me to go to Sunday school, they were asked to help out with the lox box fundraiser. They sold a few, but most importantly, on the Sunday in November when they were to be delivered, my father was sitting at a long table behind a scale, weighing lox. He passed the foam plate full of fish to Howie Lipshultz who used a Ronco Seal-a-meal to encase it in airtight plastic. Howie gave it to Sandee Schor who put it in a box with bagels she had bagged, and then passed the box to my mom, who added the onion and tomatoes. Jump 40 years. We threw my mom a 75th birthday party last summer. Sandee, Howie's wife and a whole bunch of other people who were at that table or others like it over the years were in attendance. My parents modeled community for me and me sister. Many of their most important relationships were and are through the synagogue.
No surprise I became an educator. My sister is married to a rabbi. We have very Jewish homes. You don;t need to be a professional to raise Jewish kids. But you have to demonstrate that being Jewish is not kid stuff. It is for adults living and doing adult things in the context of participating in a Jewish community.
One of the biggest challenges in the non-orthodox day school world is enculturating students in the life of a synagogue - essentially being part of a community that doesn;t expire on graduation day. I am part of a group that is planning on bringing together synagogue school and day school directors to try and crack this issue.
Thanks for posting this. I am enjoying the conversation.
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Permalink Reply by Sara Shapiro-Plevan on -
Erica, thanks for posting this. My first paid teaching job was at BJEP, too long ago to date without embarrassing myself.
My concern today, as it was then, was that because of the way that the program is built, there is no web of support for families, no larger community (in whatever dimension, style, etc.) for them to "join," and therefore, no reason to continue their engagement after their child(ren) have aged out of the community. Sure, families who shy away from synagogue affiliation can find refuge, but they are not finding refuge *with* other families, just refuge *from* others.
In this model, parents are minimally engaged, and little or nothing is offered to them or asked of them (see Ira's pediatric Judaism comments below). We have much evidence that this pediatric approach doesn't work, and that in fact, parents are at a unique moment in their own lives when they choose ANY Jewish education for their children. A window of opportunity opens, and programs like BJEP are not structured to take advantage of this opportunity.
Jewish learning needs to engage the entire family in meaningful, rich experiences through which they can feel a part of something larger, be it a community or the whole of the Jewish people. Until programs like BJEP can provide that, they aren't working to their fullest capacity.
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Permalink Reply by Sara Shapiro-Plevan on
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Ira, thanks for taking the conversation farther afield and opening it up to lots of new voices!
I realize as I reread my post and read the posts above that we need to sound a word of caution; this dialogue is not meant to highlight the shortcomings of a particular program, educational team or community. What we can draw out of a one sided look at the BJEP program is a set of valuable insights and interesting conversation. I think it's important to remind ourselves, however, that we cannot truly know, critique, criticize or even compliment an educational program without working hard to understand their values and vision on a deeper level.
Let's assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that we mean this conversation to be about "independent complementary educational programs" and the widest definition of those terms. Does this sound about right?
I think that we can safely assume that there are many "independent" programs that do in fact meet the bulk of the criteria we described above...authentic community that builds real relationships, empowerment to live Jewish lives and make Jewish choices, learning that is rich, meaningful and relevant, and all of these oriented to what truly matters in the lives of learners (these are my interpretations of the design principles drawn from Jon Woocher, et al's Lippman Kanfer working paper, Redesigning Jewish Education from the 21st Century). But where are they, and who are they serving, how are they built or developed? Are they sustainable (and do they need to be)? And most of all, how can we learn from them?
A few years ago, I worked with two sets of parents (six families per group) to design home study experiences for their children and their families. These would now be, on some level, considered "independent" in the larger definition of that term. These were typical parents who opted out of affiliation with traditionally structured/hierarchical Jewish institutions, who left large congregations where their children had attended either religious school or nursery school. But they were not leaving. They were choosing another path, one which led some to deeper engagement, or to the same kind of bar mitzvah they would have had otherwise. But they were actively engaged in seeking something that was different from what they had come to know.
What we want, I think, are Jewish families who are making some kind of choice, and owning that choice. They are not accepting what is before them and complaining about what results, or buying a product/paying for a service. They are engaged in the debate and difficulty that comes with making a choice, and the ramifications of that choosing.
Once upon a time I feared for synagogues, that having these families not choose congregations would ultimately signal the demise of that kind of Jewish life, but I don't worry about that anymore. Frankly, I don't care if they're choosing two hours a week of engagement...they are still making the choice. I care that families are asking difficult questions, choosing to do it with others like them, and connecting to something bigger and more meaningful. We can't keep selling the old model. It doesn't work. We can help families to identify what it is about alternative or independent models that appeals to them, and help them to shape a Jewish life for their families that employs the best of those models and the richness of our collective tradition.
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Permalink Reply by Robin Wood on -
Families who begin their children's Jewish education can move on to a synagogue to get the community you are talking about. I have seen that as a supplementary school director in Northern CA. Some people aren't ready for synagogue membership. A school like the one described provides an entry point. It is a way to be welcoming to people.
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Permalink Reply by Noemi Szoychen on -
This is a very interesting subject. I've worked in Jewish education for 20+ years and I thought I heard it all but for the last 6 months or so, I heard lots of critics and complains from friends whose kids attend either supplemental or formal Jewish education. They said that the only reason they send there kids to such institutions is because there isn't other options available. Why are they unhappy? Their common complain is, they feel that these institutions are creating "praying robots' with out the basics of Jewish knowledge. These people, who by the way completed all their Jewish education on Jewish Day schools in Spanish speaking countries, can not understand why they kids who had spent 8+ years on a Jewish Religious School, does not know who Isaac Bashevis Singer was? or why are they not fluent in Hebrew, after all, all of these parents were Hebrew speakers by the time they finished high school. These are not religious but very knowledgeable and zionist Jews who want their kids to have a "real" basic and realistic Jewish education and knowledge of Israel for their kids. They want more Jewish culture, more Jewish History, more Jewish philosophy and Jewish literature than what they are currently provided by the synagogues in town. Curriculum in any conservative and Reform synagogue are religious centered and does not give enough room for what these parents are asking. What if we could think out of the box instead of in the box and think of the possibility that Independent/cultural Jewish schools could work in favor of Religious school programs. What if these programs are not even provided on Sundays? Why can't parents decide what's best for their children? Community isolation is not a problem when you create a new small community with in. These type of programs have the potential of having a greater parent involvement than the "all well known" poor parent involvement that our current religious schools have. In any type of program you have parents who just "drop off" their kids to our religious school. Lets be honest, the widely complain from colleagues in most of school I have been is "these parents want us to baby sit their kids on Sundays". Many parents do not even care what curriculum you teach their kids as long as they can sing the Torah blessings at their Bar or Bat Mitzvah. So the question here is, what type of community will the kids who attend to "other" type of Jewish education programs would be lacking off? Why think these type of school are not conducive to new and greater ways of providing Jewish education and serving our Jewish communities? I can only see parents who care for their children's Jewish education and wish their kids will have the same Jewish education they had when they were their age. I am talking as an educator and as a parent myself. I try to listen to parents and friends who are struggling with similar issues. We currently do not offer any program like this in our city so, so I do not talk by experience. I just like to always think out of the box.
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Permalink Reply by Sara Shapiro-Plevan on
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Noemi, your "praying robots" comment caught my attention. I just read this interesting post/response by the Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary that I think may frame for you where we'd like to imagine our learning for all ages around prayer might begin.
http://jtsa.edu/prebuilt/blog/tefillah-response.html
I'd be thrilled to hear other responses and people's thoughts on this...and how we might translate it into meaningful tefillah for young people and their families.
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