(This is a prerequisite course for the program. Participants who pass the entrance exam are exempt from this course.)
This course introduces the classical and modern texts that make up the Jewish corpus with a focus on practical instructional design. Participants will explore the religious, legal, and literary texts, engage with the “slow reading” process, and identify ways to make themes that appear in these books meaningful in contemporary times.

This course examines the distinctive pedagogical challenges and opportunities involved in teaching Jewish texts in day school settings. Drawing on major theories of cognitive, psychosocial, and moral development, it explores how learners encounter, interpret, and construct meaning from sacred texts. Participants will engage with contemporary instructional frameworks to design developmentally attuned and text-rich learning experiences. The course also addresses classroom culture, assessment practices, and approaches for balancing critical inquiry with reverence for tradition. By its conclusion, participants will be equipped with practical tools and conceptual frameworks to improve Jewish text instruction.

This course introduces participants to the historical geography of the Land of Israel during the Biblical period through an integrated program of site-based learning and critical engagement with ancient texts. By visiting key archaeological locations and correlating them with Biblical narratives and contemporaneous inscriptions, participants gain firsthand insight into the political, cultural, and religious developments that shaped ancient Israel. Lectures explore broader scholarly debates and examine major historical sources from Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and neighboring cultures. Throughout the course, participants assess how geography, material culture, and textual evidence together illuminate the Biblical period.

The Torah is a rich and often untapped source for the study of Jewish thought. This course will explore a sampling of those ideas, including the nature of humanity, independence, chosenness, peoplehood, responsibility, leadership, destiny and free will, and God’s relationship with the world. The course will empower teachers to bring these ideas into the classroom with greater understanding and pedagogic purpose.

This course will address a range of strategies designed to help teachers teach Jewish texts to students with little facility in Hebrew. The primary focus will be on introducing and applying a range of higher order thinking skills to textual study, including thematic readings, analysis, critical thinking, comparative translations, identifying leitwort, intertextuality, and creative exegesis. The goals of these approaches include learning to engage students in meaningful textual study, empowering students to engage with Jewish texts, tools for student learning, and encouraging students to want to improve their facility with Hebrew to afford them greater access to primary Jewish texts.

This workshop helps learners strengthen both listening comprehension and spoken expression in contemporary Hebrew. Participants begin by identifying their own proficiency and limitations, creating a clear starting point for focused language growth. The course introduces practical tools for understanding authentic audio and video clips and offers opportunities to use new vocabulary and structures in meaningful interactions. Participants practice speaking across different registers of modern Hebrew—formal, informal, and colloquial—through a mix of guided and interactive activities. By the end of the workshop, participants gain greater confidence and flexibility in using Hebrew in real communicative situations.

The course will offer a historical introduction accompanied by a sociological analysis of the Zionist movement, the Jewish community in the Land of Israel known as the “Yishuv” and the State of Israel. The first part of the course will be devoted to the emergence of Zionism, the ideologies of its early leaders, and the relationship of the Yishuv to internal Zionist debates and external powers. In the second part of the course, discussions will focus on the creation of the State; the Arab-Israeli conflict; the political system; the mass immigration and the ethnic gap; and relations with the Arab minority and the question of Identity. Participants will emerge from this course with a stronger grasp of the complexities and nuances of contemporary Israel.