Amira Soleimani, Author at The Lookstein Center

Shabbat Mishpacha: Bringing the Shabbat Table to the Classroom

Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit is a community Jewish day school committed to preserving Jewish peoplehood through a rich and meaningful Jewish education. In 2019, Hillel launched Shabbat Mishpacha as an experiential Shabbat program in which students from all grade levels are grouped together in small mishpachot. Each mishpacha contains two to three students per grade level and General and Judaic Studies teachers representing a range of grade levels, generating a diverse cross-section of the entire student body and teaching staff.

Building Resilience through Judaic Studies Curriculum 📄🎬

Unlike subjects in the natural sciences, Judaic Studies courses risk being pigeonholed and labeled as “feel good” classes. In the early years of my teaching career, I stood alongside a high-school parent at conferences who joyfully remarked, “My daughter loves your class. She thinks it’s really cool how everything is always right because it’s all your opinion.” While I outwardly half-smiled at the words, deep shame overcame my being as I wondered what missteps I had taken in my text-based course that led my student to believe that every answer was correct?