In supplemental school settings, there is so much for our students to learn in so little time. With a focus on learning Jewish traditions and preparing for Benei Mitzvah services, students often interact with Hebrew as an ancient language used in prayer and the Torah. It can be challenging for educators to allocate additional preparation and class time for students to experience Hebrew as a modern, spoken language.

Congregation Beth Elohim (Acton, Massachusetts) is an independent synagogue of about 200 families. We strive to foster a warm, welcoming, and inclusive environment that fulfills the ever-changing needs of our Jewish community. Our supplemental Religious School includes students from kindergarten through 10^th grade. We seek to create a learning environment that is warm and engaging, and to create a love of learning and a strong Jewish connection that will stay with our students throughout their lives. 

Goals

I joined our Religious School staff in 2024 and began looking for ways to incorporate conversational Hebrew into my classes. My students responded very positively to this experience, but I was only able to work with a few of the classes for a short amount of time each week. For the 2025-2026 school year I proposed an additional conversational Hebrew program to CBE’s Education Director, Cindy Kalish, that could take place during lunchtime after Sunday school. The primary goal of this program would be to provide the opportunity and support for students to practice speaking conversational Hebrew. The secondary goal would be to build connections: between program attendees (students and teachers), and between attendees and Israel as a modern country with a vibrant, diverse, and contemporary society. Over time, the welcoming combination of food, conversation, and mutual support would hopefully build a community of Hebrew-speaking students who would then have a greater opportunity to feel at home if they are able to visit Israel in the future.

Ms. Kalish agreed that this would be a valuable opportunity for our students. Not only did she think it was a strong idea, but she knew there was interest in conversational Hebrew from current students as well as from parents of new and prospective students. And so, Cafe Ivrit was launched in September 2025. The program is held twice each month and is open to all students in Grades 4-10. No prior experience with conversational Hebrew is required, and students can attend whichever sessions work with their schedule.

Experience Design

I brought my professional background in experience design into the creation and facilitation of Cafe Ivrit.Each session focuses on a simple theme that is easy for students to engage with (such as food, weather, or movies) and is accompanied by a “menu” of words for our students to practice using in conversation with teachers and each other. These curated sets ofwords work as building blocks that the students can put together in different ways to talk about the topic. For example, at our session about weather students learned related vocabulary and also worked with yeish (“there is”) and ein (“there isn’t”) to talk about what types of weather do and do not occur during different seasons in different parts of the world. Even though most of the material was new for the students, they were quickly able to pick up the patterns and use Hebrew to answer questions and build sentences.

While other components of our school’s Hebrew instruction emphasize reading the written language, Cafe Ivrit focuses on making speaking as accessible as possible. One way we do this is to have the word menu include transliteration in addition to Hebrew and English translation. Over time, the sessions reinforce the material as students use it repeatedly and in new ways. The atmosphere of Cafe Ivrit is intentionally relaxed and supportive, encouraging students to practice speaking Hebrew in a space where it is safe to try things and make mistakes. For this reason, so far we have not invited parents to attend as we know this could cause stress and self-consciousness for some of our students. Cafe Ivrit is also an inclusive space for our LGBTQ+ students and teachers, where we help everyone navigate the gendered aspects of Hebrew grammar by sharing preferred pronouns and including non-binary options in our word menu (using the Nonbinary Hebrew Project as a resource).

How’s It Going?

So far this year we’ve had a small but consistent group of students attending Cafe Ivrit, representing Grades 4 to 9. The program is a unique opportunity within our Religious School for students across those grades to interact and learn together as peers. Students find the topics engaging, enjoy the opportunity to speak Hebrew, and value the interactive nature of the program. Some students have asked for more exercises where they can practice directly with each other in addition to answering questions from the teacher, so we will design future sessions with that in mind. In my regular weekly Religious School Hebrew class, I have observed that students who attend Cafe Ivrit have stronger recall of Hebrew vocabulary. While I am the facilitator for Cafe Ivrit sessions, other teachers and the rabbi will sometimes stop by for a slice of pizza and jump into the conversation as well. This is a fun, informal environment for these interactions, which is also unique within our school.

What’s Next?

The pilot year of Cafe Ivrit has so far been positive, and we plan to develop it further. We hope to find ways to encourage more students to drop in and check it out. We also plan to solicit feedback from the students who have attended this year in an effort to retain current participants and recruit new attendees. We want to offer sessions more frequently to reinforce the material as often as possible; so far this year, scheduling changes and snow days have unfortunately resulted in gaps of 2-3 weeks between some sessions. One of our teachers has a partnership program with a classroom in Haifa, so we may explore ways to make the Cafe Ivrit program even more accessible to her students; their increased comfort with conversational Hebrew would help strengthen their connection with their Israeli counterparts. I have been approached by parents and other adult members of our synagogue community who have expressed interest in an adult session of Cafe Ivrit, so that may be a possibility as well.

Conclusion

We are pleased with our initial launch of Cafe Ivrit and the engagement of participating students. It has also been an energizing topic of discussion with our teaching staff, clergy, and synagogue community members as it is currently our only modern Hebrew program. In addition, Cafe Ivrit has inspired teachers of younger grades to incorporate more conversational Hebrew into their lessons in an effort to engage the students with a broader Jewish identity. People are excited about it and we are too. We hope to continue to develop the program: recruiting more participants, making the content as engaging and stimulating as possible, and establishing a welcoming, supportive, and fun environment to build a relationship with the living Hebrew language and the rich culture of modern Israeli society.