Andrew Ergas, Author at The Lookstein Center

Ivrit is a School-Wide Responsibility

Imagine a Jewish day school that identifies Torah as a core value they seek to inculcate in their students as both a body of knowledge and a lens through which to see life. In such a school, it would be reasonable to expect to see the word “Torah” in the mission statements of the schools, represented in word and image in important locations around the building, and referenced at key gatherings of the community. One would never imagine that Torah would only be referenced in the Jewish studies courses or modeled solely by the Jewish studies faculty. For Torah to be a lived value, students would need to encounter it throughout the day and throughout the building, informing how they treat one another and how they help build a living Jewish community in school in ways that then spill over into their broader lives.

Yet, while Hebrew is a core value for many Jewish day schools, too many silo it in the faculty and classrooms of the Hebrew department. Hebrew, a connector to Israel, a key to Jewish literacy, a language shared across time and the globe, is being put on the shoulders of too narrow a slice of the school community.

From Hebrew Infusion to Acquisition: Unleashing the Power of the Hebrew Language

When Charles Dickens, a somewhat repentant purveyor of antisemitic tropes, opens A Tale of Two Cities with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” he might be describing the contemporary Jewish experience. In every generation, our people confront new opportunities, but also new and historic challenges. Today is no different. With a rise in antisemitism, many young people are choosing to move towards the exit of the Jewish community, and the growing gaps between both Jews of different orientations and between the two largest Jewish communities, Israel and North America, are of critical concern. As more Jews begin to define themselves as “Just Jewish,” “Culturally Jewish,” or consider removing “Jewish” from their identities, we must unlock strategies and interventions that creatively weave both the old and the new in ways that engage, inspire, and connect.