Sight Line is a digital journal brought to you by The Covenant Foundation. It offers information for and about the field of Jewish education in its broadest definition and is intended to evoke conversation and create an opportunity for action.
EXPLORE THE LATEST VOLUMEPortal seems like a particularly apt metaphor for entry points into Jewish life and learning because ultimately we want those experiences to be deeply experiential and transformative. We also want them to be accessible. A portal has no toll; passage is free. At the same time, a portal is particularistic, not a generic entrance. It conveys a sense of magic, ritual, and power. Similarly, we want to convey that Jewish life is rich, layered, and meaningful beyond what is immediately apparent. We want the encounter with Jewish life to take you on a journey that is profound and surprising. And, given that each of us may enter through the same portal but have a completely different experience of what is on the other “side,” the possibilities are endless.
— Judith Rosenbaum, Executive Director, The Jewish Women’s Archive
Noted voices speak out about the concept of Portals to Jewish Life and Learning as it relates to their own work in the field.
Featured in this volume are four books, which each address the idea of Portals to Jewish Life and Learning though a variety of methods. In Relational Judaism: Using the Power of Relationships to Transform the Jewish Community, Dr. Ron Wolfson, presents his idea for revamping the old models of Jewish institutions and focusing instead on building community. In Wise Aging: Living With Joy, Resilience and Spirit, Rabbi Rachel Cowan and Dr. Linda Thal explore a range of issues that concern an aging population, including: relationships with adult children and spouses; body image; romance and sexuality; living with loss; and, cultivating wellbeing. In Seder Talk, Erica Brown offers both a commentary on the traditional haggadah text as well as conversation starters for the Passover dinner table, and in The Green Bubbie, Ruth Pinkenson Feldman offers tools and tips for an “energy-efficient” model of grandparenting.
By Rabbi Rachel Cowan and Dr. Linda Thal
“Grounded in mindfulness and spiritual practices such as meditation, journaling, movement, and blessings from Judaism and other faith traditions, Wise Aging offers social, emotional and spiritual insights to help individuals meet the challenges of second adulthood with a sustaining spirit.
In addition to its use as a foundational text for the Wise Aging program, Wise Aging can be read as a standalone book, and serve as an excellent resource for book groups, and other places where ongoing learning, reflection on experience, spiritual practice, and pursuit of wisdom define the agenda.
Wise Aging provides the road-map for the journey we are all on, and that is especially relevant for baby boomers: achieving a fulfilling older age. No subject is off limits. Rabbi Cowan and Dr. Thal explore a wide range of issues including: relationships with adult children and spouses; body image; romance and sexuality; living with loss; and, cultivating wellbeing.” (Institute for Jewish Spirituality-Wise Aging Newsletter June 3, 2015)
More to Consider
By Dr. Ron Wolfson
“With this simple, but profound idea, noted educator and community revitalization pioneer Dr. Ron Wolfson presents practical strategies and case studies to transform the old model of Jewish institutions into relational communities. He sets out twelve principles of relational engagement to guide Jewish lay leaders, professionals and community members in transforming institutions into inspiring communities whose value-proposition is to engage people and connect them to Judaism and community in meaningful and lasting ways.” (Amazon.com)
More to Consider
By Ruth Pinkenson Feldman
“Bubbie is the Yiddish word for grandmother, but a Green Bubbie is an energy-efficient model of grandparenting. Whether or not you have your own children and grandchildren, you too can be a Green Bubbie—the secret is to know how to nurture those who are growing right in front of you! And if you’re lucky enough to meet a Green Bubbie, she will become the “accidental relative you meet on the road to finding yourself.”
Whether you’re a Green Bubbie or one of her “sprouts,” you can become part of the very special world of organic, intergenerational relationships.”
More to Consider
“For award-winning author and educator Dr. Erica Brown, one should approach the Passover Seder with imagination as well as intellect. The Seder’s grab-bag of esoteric rabbinic texts, prayers, symbolic foods, and strange farm-animal songs opens the door for commentary and conversation, inviting us to make the exodus story truly our own. SEDER TALK: THE CONVERSATIONAL HAGGADA features two books in one: an erudite, sensitive commentary on the Haggada text with conversation trigger points, and eight short essays for each day of the holiday. In her signature educational style, Dr. Brown includes art and poetry to engage the reader in the sensory emotions of Seder night in addition to thought-provoking questions and life-homework exercises for greater mindfulness, intention, and inner freedom. SEDER TALK introduces ideas from the Vilna Gaon, Stephen King, Rav Kook, the Hassidic Sfat Emet , the Harvard Business Review, and more, creating a springboard for fascinating conversation for all ages.” (Amazon.com)
More to Consider
Featured in this volume is the Shababa! Network, a welcoming community that incorporates music, puppets and Judaism at the 92Street Y. Also featured is the InHEIRitance Project, a community theater project engaging people across the country in building a collaborative Jewish narrative through theater, text study and personal stories.
Shababa is a “welcoming community for everyone, nurtures family bonds and bridges
connections to Jewish life and values.” Led by Karina Zilberman, Director of Jewish Family Life and Culture and recipient of the 2012 Covenant Award, Shababa inspires children and adults alike to engage with their Judaism in a joyful, musical way.
More to Consider:
Five pieces of theater in five cities in three years. This is the mission of The inHEIRitance project, a collaboration spearheaded by performer and playwright Jon Adam Ross and funded by a Covenant Foundation grant. Rooted in the stories of our biblical patriarchs and matriarchs from the Book of Genesis, and with a process that includes text study, workshops, and the personal stories of Jews in different locations across the country, the inHEIRitance Project invites participants from around the Jewish world to engage in a lasting communal narrative.
If your community is interested in participating in The inHEIRitance Project, get involved by clicking here.
More to Consider:
“The Jewish family is changing, and so we ask ourselves, ‘How can we use our communal places of gathering in innovative ways that open our tent to all kinds of families?”
— Esther Netter, Chief Executive Officer, the Cayton Children’s Museum
“Families that share stories about parents and grandparents, about triumphs and failures, provide powerful models for children. Children understand who they are in the world not only through their individual experience, but through the filters of family stories that provide a sense of identity through historical time...Through sharing the past, families recreate themselves in the present, and project themselves into the future.”
—“Do You Know…” The power of family history in adolescent identity and well-being
Read more about Dr. Marshall Duke and his work, here.
“There are people out there who are educating their hearts as we speak. They’re getting on with the work, they’re loving their kids, they’re loving their students, they’re loving their communities. We must retrain our vision toward those people—we must develop eyes to see and ears to hear where that love is already happening—that is worth our energy and our care and our time, to tend that love, to show that love ourselves.”
—Krista Tippett, Founder and CEO, The On Being Project
“There are just two outcomes that really matter: First, that students feel Judaism is the fertile ground in which they get nurtured to grow, and second, that they find Judaism joyful.” Rabbi Joy Levitt, Executive Director, JCC Manhattan
"Civil discourse requires us to listen generously and to act as though—and to really believe—we could be open to persuasion. We each may think: 'I did not cause this situation, I am not to blame.' Yet we each have the capacity to help society turn the corner, if we honestly ask what went wrong and what we can do about it."
- Martha Minow, the 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard University and Joseph William Singer, Bussey Professor of Law, Harvard University
The Wow Metric of Success: Jewish Life in Bloom on the Farm: Spring has arrived, and the Jewish community is busy planting with purpose. In Vaughan, Ontario, the yellow coltsfoot and purple-blue scilla are just starting to flower at the Kavanah Garden, a half acre community garden that’s part of Shoresh, the Canadian-based Jewish environmental organization that includes the Kavanah Garden and Bela Farm. Last Sunday, on “Yom Manual Labor” volunteers gathered to turn the soil, plant seeds, paint outdoor tables and participate in construction projects with the Shoresh team, preparing the garden for growing season.
“Our Jewish community is only as strong as its ability to include all members in the fabric of Jewish life. Doing so helps each of us recognize the unique strengths we all bring to the Jewish community, and that community cannot possibly be complete until we actively and intentionally welcome each other.”
-Meredith Englander Polsky, 2017 Covenant Award Recipient, Director of Institutes and Training, Matan, and Developmental Support Coordinator, Temple Beth Ami Nursery School
“From all of my teachers, I have grown wise.” Psalms 119:99. Framing Jewish Education, a project of The Jewish Lens and supported by The Covenant Foundation, was created to engage teachers, students, and families in conversation about the value of Jewish education and to illustrate the power of great teaching and learning via a curriculum based on visual literacy and text.
“For me, study is a divine and daily imperative; I study a page of Talmud daily so that I am not only teaching. My teaching is constantly being fed by my learning.” —Erica Brown Associate Professor, George Washington School of Education and Human Development. Director, Mayberg Center for Jewish Education and Leadership, 2009 Covenant Award Recipient
The Covenant Classroom means something different to every educator but common goals are to motivate, engage and be inclusive of all learners. In this volume, we’ve collected an array of Teachings on Inspiration and Motivation in all areas of Education.
#ThankATeacher It has been twenty-five years since The Covenant Foundation first opened its doors, and we continue to be humbled by extraordinary Jewish educators from across North America and across the spectrum of Jewish life who have devoted their careers and considerable talents to the field of Jewish education. Now, in celebration of a quarter-century-old tradition of honoring Jewish education and educators, and to kick off a year of public engagement around great teaching, we’re proud to share The Covenant Foundation voices app with you: a new digital way to give and share your gratitude.
“What would it look like if we bet on Jewish early childhood education for the long-term, as our tradition instructs? The task might seem large, but the reward, we know, is great (Pirkei Avot 2:15).”
“Countless leaders have been inspired by the story of the Jewish people leaving bondage in Egypt – those whose names we know, like Martin Luther King, Jr. and those whose names we never will know, whose every-day acts of kindness and resistance fuel social change. This story, our story, has become a cornerstone of modern social justice work.”
—Abby Levine, Director of The Jewish Social Justice Roundtable
This is how I see a “Covenant Classroom”: a place where challenging topics are passionately discussed; a place where complex ancient texts are grappled with; a place in which self- esteem grows, and motivation to learn increases exponentially because of it. An environment in which each Jewish soul is given the confidence to continue the eternal search for meaning.”
—Dr. Sandra Ostrowicz Lilienthal, Curriculum Developer and Instructor at The Rose and Jack Orloff Central Agency for Jewish Education of Broward County and 2015 Covenant Award Recipient
“When powerful, new approaches to learning are introduced through digital tools, meaningful disruptions occur along the way… When this happens, new approaches which previously seemed inaccessible, are suddenly within reach.”
—Barry Joseph, Associate Director for Digital Learning, Youth Initiatives, American Museum of Natural History
“The future of Jewish teen engagement can in fact be found in 3D printers, and in text-people, and in service, and outdoor education, and in anything that brings teens into contact with authentic learning experiences and passionate, caring, knowledgeable educators.”
—Charlie Schwartz, Senior Jewish Educator, Director, BIMA & Genesis, Brandeis High School Programs
Portal seems like a particularly apt metaphor for entry points into Jewish life and learning because ultimately we want those experiences to be deeply experiential and transformative. We also want them to be accessible. A portal has no toll; passage is free. At the same time, a portal is particularistic, not a generic entrance. It conveys a sense of magic, ritual, and power. Similarly, we want to convey that Jewish life is rich, layered, and meaningful beyond what is immediately apparent. We want the encounter with Jewish life to take you on a journey that is profound and surprising. And, given that each of us may enter through the same portal but have a completely different experience of what is on the other "side," the possibilities are endless.
— Judith Rosenbaum, Executive Director, The Jewish Women’s Archive
"We need a new kind of creativity in the classroom that’s going to reach Jewish kids… If a teacher is imaginative, he or she is going to connect to students’ hearts and souls.”
—Dr. Arnold Eisen, Chancellor, Jewish Theological Seminary, Board Member, The Covenant Foundation.
"There are four types of students... The sponge absorbs everything. The funnel brings in on one side lets it out the other. The strainer lets out the wine and retains the lees. The sieve lets out the flour dust and retains the fine flour." —Pirkei Avot 5:15
"There’s a misconception that a venture must depend on large grants from big donors. It makes more sense and it’s more sustainable to test out an idea, and see whether it has the opportunity to make an impact on people’s lives."
— Ariel Beery, founder, PresenTense
I think [creating new Jewish texts] is a really good description of what we’re trying to do. These days we’re increasingly creating products that are intended to be shared on the web. We’ve felt and continue to feel that this medium, and virtual communication as a whole, is being under-tapped for its possibilities for making art.
— Reflections from Sam Ball on the New Jewish Filmmaker Project