From Exposure to Expression: A Schoolwide Model for Increasing Hebrew Production through Joyful Culturally Rich Pedagogy
Despite significant growth across nearly all curricular areas in recent decades, Hebrew language instruction remains a persistent challenge in many Jewish day schools. While schools throughout the diaspora have sought to address this issue by employing shelihim from Israel, this model has raised ongoing concerns, including a lack of continuity due to frequent staff turnover, uneven pedagogical training, differing cultural assumptions about teaching and learning, and questions of quality control. At the Moriah School (Englewood, NJ), these long-standing concerns converged with a broader question that many school communities face: How could it be that a child could spend twelve years in a Jewish day school and still struggle to speak Hebrew?
This urgent question became the catalyst for our recent initiative. The school’s leadership felt that the moment had arrived for a bold, systemic rethink. Student outcomes in many subjects were improving, yet progress in Hebrew remained stagnant. With research in second-language acquisition shifting significantly in recent years, the leadership recognized that Hebrew didn’t only need more exposure but also a different kind of exposure, one that would naturally lead to expression.
With this goal in mind, two years ago, we invited Mrs. Ilana Samberg, a second-language acquisition expert from Sha’anan Orthodox College of Education in Israel, to partner with the school in designing a research-based, cohesive approach to strengthening Hebrew fluency. This work emerged through a unique collaboration between three roles: academic expertise, instructional leadership, and classroom implementation. Our shared goal, simple yet ambitious: to create a schoolwide environment where speaking Hebrew feels natural, joyful, and achievable for every learner.
Understanding Before Prescribing
Before recommending any changes, Ilana spent a week embedded in daily school life as a “fly on the wall.” She visited classrooms across divisions, observed lessons, met with student panels, and interviewed teachers who teach Pre-K through 8th grade, as well as administrators. This initial phase was rooted in the belief that meaningful change must begin with an accurate diagnosis. It was necessary to begin with an accurate understanding of Moriah’s culture, its routines, and its existing strengths and challenges, rather than to import a prepackaged program.
From this process emerged a cohesive schoolwide framework anchored in three pillars: relevance, engagement, and enjoyment. Over the past two years, these principles have reshaped daily classroom life and begun to transform Moriah into a community of lifelong learners who approach Hebrew with genuine curiosity, pleasure, and confidence.
Relevance: Making Hebrew Personal
Hebrew comes alive when learners recognize themselves within it; this principle guided us as we redesigned lesson structures and positioned Hebrew as a communicative medium rather than merely an academic target. Vocabulary selection became more intentional, focusing on students’ experiences and interests and not on isolated thematic lists. Instruction shifted from summary to reflection, inviting students to immerse themselves in cultural texts and grapple with characters’ decisions and moral dilemmas. Instead of workbook exercises that drill accuracy, students began journaling, responding to brief, purposeful prompts that fostered personal connection and creative expression. Though these adjustments seemed subtle, they reflected a profound shift: from prioritizing performance alone to cultivating true proficiency, helping students think in the language and in real-life context, rather than translating into it.
Engagement: Encouraging Active Participation
Engagement does not mean entertainment; it means active participation with a purpose. Teachers intentionally shifted the classroom dynamic from teacher-centered lessons to student-centered production. Hebrew is now the classroom’s working language, with students actively building and recycling language through structured peer interactions and meaningful discussions. Starting lessons with Hebrew energizers, incorporating daily speaking routines like partner conversations, rotating discussion groups, scaffolded mini-presentations, recorded short interviews and news segments, and readers’ theater ensures Hebrew is present throughout the lesson. Station rotations provide students with a variety of activities in each session, promoting active recycling, review, and retrieval of both new and familiar language skills. Using sentence starters and visible language chunks helps reduce anxiety and encourages participation from all students, including those who are hesitant. Most importantly, the team began measuring actual output rather than assuming progress, and results showed sustained growth in students’ spoken and written Hebrew.
Enjoyment: Lowering the Affective Factor
Joy plays a vital role in foreign language acquisition; it shouldn’t be a luxury but a cognitive necessity. When students experience stress or frustration in the learning process, their willingness to produce language drops. Conversely, when learners experience enjoyment, they take risks, experiment, and retain more. We infused learning with Israeli music, videos, role-plays, games, and culturally relevant projects to create authentic language experiences. Alternative assessments invited students to produce Hebrew through group skits, mock interviews, comic creations, and collaborative cookbooks. These experiences boosted both expressive skills and emotional connection.
Professional Growth: Two Pathways to Lasting Change
Relevance, engagement, and enjoyment can clearly serve as the foundation for instruction across all disciplines and levels. However, these concepts alone cannot create lasting change without one of the most important elements—the teachers. They are part of a larger framework that includes ongoing professional development and, in our case, two interconnected pathways of professional growth.
The first path centers on faculty-wide professional development. Core Hebrew & Tanakh teachers participate in monthly professional development sessions that enhance instructional practice and address topics such as cultural connections, kinesthetic learning, productive language skills, AI integration, and meaningful assessment. These workshops provide opportunities to share best practices and offer models, tools, and ideas that can be implemented immediately in the classroom.
The second path is individualized coaching. Through one-on-one mentorship, teachers receive personalized guidance that strengthens their pedagogical skills and professional confidence. This personalized process provides professional support that helps teachers translate broad principles into their classroom realities.
After establishing foundational changes in the first year, the model has evolved into what our team calls the “ambassador model”: veteran teachers with high self-efficacy began leading initiatives within their divisions. Ambassadors collaborate closely with Ilana both before and after professional development sessions, offering peer support to colleagues. Although Ilana is based in Israel, she visits the school three times a year, ensuring continuity, strengthening relationships with faculty, and maintaining consistent guidance across both virtual and in-person interactions. When she is abroad, the ambassadors continue to focus on instructional change under her overall guidance. This sustained professional development model unfolds through cycles of shared learning, collaborative planning, classroom experimentation, and reflective follow-up, with pedagogical support from both Ilana and the ambassadors. Through this collective effort, we have enhanced both pedagogy and community culture, enabling Hebrew to gradually evolve from just an academic subject to a language for everyday life.
Communitywide Responsibility
Lasting change requires the dedication of all stakeholders. Our administration meets regularly with Ilana to assess implementation and address areas that need additional reinforcement. Parents joined a workshop on incorporating Hebrew into daily home routines, reinforcing the idea that Hebrew is not just a school subject but a living part of our Jewish heritage.
This shared ownership among administrators, teachers, ambassadors, parents, and students has been key to the initiative’s success, built on the understanding that commitment doesn’t end at the close of the school day; Hebrew learning goes well beyond the classroom.
Early Observations
Now, midway through its second year, several encouraging patterns have emerged:
- Teachers report that students initiate Hebrew more frequently and sustain longer conversations.
- Writing samples demonstrate greater length, complexity, and creativity.
- Students anticipate Hebrew lessons and appear more willing to take risks and do so with enthusiasm and creativity.
- Teachers’ conversations increasingly center on output, fluency, and student voice.
- Focus has broadened from “covering the curriculum” to cultivating communication.
Mistakes are celebrated and viewed as part of the learning process. Joy is visible in lessons and in the corridors. Communication is the goal.
Although outcomes are promising, we do not view this as a completed project. Learning is a process, and we, too, are in the midst of ongoing refinement. The trajectory is clear: when production becomes intentional rather than incidental, growth follows. Step by step.
A Multi-layered Partnership
We believe that one of the factors for our success to date is the involvement of multiple layers of involvement within the school in conjunction with the outside guidance. The Head of School provided the institutional vision and has ensured that Hebrew language development remains a cross-divisional priority. The leadership of the Lower School and the Director of Curriculum and Instruction collaborated closely with Ilana over the past two years, planning PD workshops, monitoring progress, and guiding implementation. Ilana, the academic partner, brought research-based expertise, designed professional development lectures and workshops, and provided ongoing pedagogical coaching. That multi-layered leadership team worked with the Hebrew and Tanakh teachers, who implemented, adapted, and refined strategies in real time, sharing feedback and insights that have shaped this evolving model.
This collaboration created coherence. Anchored in daily classroom realities, this progress was neither purely theoretical nor merely administrative. It could not have been successful without all the pieces of the puzzle fitting together and working in unison.
Broader Implications for the Field
Our journey offers several lessons for schools seeking to increase Hebrew production:
- Don’t rush to change textbooks! Increasing Hebrew production does not necessarily require new materials; it often requires new structures.
- Institutional commitment must be paired with consistent professional development. Progress takes time; change doesn’t happen overnight.
- Ivrit BeIvrit is best, but it must be paired with cultural immersion and emotional climate. Students produce more when learning feels meaningful and fun.
- Offer frequent, structured opportunities for expressive language. Not all “speaking activities” are equal—students need supported, low-anxiety chances to communicate.
- Focus on joy, scaffolding, and consistency. Quick fixes don’t exist!
From Requirement to Relationship
Our initial question, “Why aren’t students speaking more Hebrew?” has evolved into a more hopeful one: “How can we continue to design classrooms in which communicating in Hebrew feels natural?”
The answer lies less in dramatic reform and more in steady, joyful practice. When exposure is paired with intentional opportunities for expression, Hebrew moves from the page into our students’ voices. It becomes less of a requirement and more of a relationship, one that students can carry into their lives beyond school.
Daniel Alter is the Head of School at the Moriah School (Englewood, NJ). Rabbi Alter was previously the Head of School of the Denver Academy of Torah, a Modern Orthodox K-12 school.
From The Editor: Spring 2026
By the time I entered the elementary school I attended, it had been around for nearly 50 years and was already in decline. Despite the challenges, there were two things which left a lasting impression. The Jewish studies, which occupied the first half of the day, were all conducted in Hebrew, Ivrit beIvrit; some of the teachers were dedicated, die-hard Hebraists who provided me with a very solid foundation. The Hebrew that I learned gave me access to Israeli songs popularized after the Six Day War and to classic Jewish texts—the siddur, Humash, and even to Gemara (yes, Aramaic and Hebrew are closely connected). The language enabled me to act as a translator when my father’s cousin came to visit from Israel, and even enabled me, years later, to attend a regular Israeli yeshiva—in Hebrew.
Aside from the Hebrew language, the school was suffused with Israeli culture.
Hebrew, Achievement, and Educational Leadership: The Process of Building Depth and Durability
בבתי ספר יהודיים בתפוצות, הוראת עברית נעה זה שנים בין שני קטבים: מחד, שפה של זהות, רגש וחיבור לעם ולמדינה; מאידך, מקצוע הנאבק על מקומו מול תחומי דעת הנתפסים כ”ליבתיים” ובעלי יוקרה אקדמית. כמנהל מחלקה לעברית וכמורה בבית ספר יהודי־ציוני, מצאתי את עצמי שואל לא פעם: האם תפקידי הוא להגיב לציפיות משתנות של תלמידים, הורים והקשר פוליטי, או שמא להציב חזון חינוכי ברור—גם במחיר של חיכוך, עומס ואתגר מערכתי. מתוך התבוננות בזהותי כמחנך עברי־ציוני ובחיבור לערכים שעליהם גדלתי, בחרתי לראות בעברית לא רק כלי זהותי אלא תחום דעת מלא: שפה חיה, תרבות עשירה, וספרות ושירה הראויות להילמד ללא התנצלות ובסטנדרטים אקדמיים ברורים.
When Hebrew Became a Lifeline: Teaching Language, Culture, and Identity After October 7
A few days after October 7, I received an email from the parent of one of my students. The message itself was simple: a link to a video of the prayer for the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, set to music. But it was the words, written by the student, that stayed with me:
I’m sure you’ll like this video because you are Israeli. It’s a good song, very encouraging. I hope Hashem will watch over all our soldiers and bring them home safely so there will be peace.
This was not an assignment. No one had asked her to do this. It was an instinctive act of connection—a student using Hebrew, prayer, and music to reach out to her teacher and to Israel. In that moment, it became clear to me that Hebrew in my classroom had changed. It was no longer only a subject to be mastered; it had become a lifeline.
Successful Shelihim
Jewish Educational Leadership: What do you see as the real value of shelihim?
Bini Krauss: Ivrit beIvrit has long been a central pillar of what we believe in. I know that there are fewer schools doing that today than there were twenty years ago, for sure, but it’s still something that’s very important to us. So the first thing is that if we want to do it properly, it’s probably good to have people who speak Ivrit as their native language. It’s not the only way to do it, but I believe that it is certainly the best way. Many years ago, I taught at the Yeshivah of Flatbush. I was not a native Hebrew speaker, but I think that I was pretty good. Nonetheless, it is much better for students to interact regularly with those for whom Hebrew is native.
Teaching Hebrew in a Changing World
אולי נתחיל בשאלה פשוטה מאוד. למה זה חשוב שיהודי בתפוצות ילמד עברית, ואיך זה משפיע על חייו?
אני חושב שהיא באמת שאלה מאוד מורכבת, מכיוון שאחד מהאתגרים הגדולים שיש היום בתפוצות הוא להתמודד עם השאלה “למה עברית?”. אני חושב שלכולם די ברור למה צריך לעסוק בתכנים יהודיים—בחלק מבתי הספר קוראים לזה מקצועות הקודש, בחלק מבתי הספר מגדירים את זה אחרת—אבל לכולם מאוד ברור שבית ספר יהודי צריך שתהיה לו זיקה ליהדות. אך מבחינת העברית יש היום הרבה מאוד סימני שאלה גדולים. ה”אני מאמין” שלי, והוא שלי בלבד, זה שאנחנו מלמדים עברית משתי סיבות. אלף, מתוך זה שהעברית היא חלק מהעולם היהודי. אי אפשר לנתק את העברית מכל ההיסטוריה היהודית. העברית היא הערך הבסיסי ביותר של היהדות.
Hebrew as an Identity Anchor in Diaspora Supplementary Schools: A Response to a Secular-Israeli-Jewish community
הוראת עברית כעוגן זהותי בחינוך המשלים בתפוצות: מענה לצורך הקהילה הישראלית-חילונית
מאת: אליאנה גורדון, נירית פריקורן וטל זילברשטיין פז
תקציר
מאמר זה מציג מודל פרקטי ליצירת תחושת שייכות וטיפוח זהות ישראלית-יהודית רב-שכבתית בקרב ילדים להורים ישראלים החיים בתפוצות, בדגש על קהילתיות ועל יחס ליהדות כתרבות חיה ומתפתחת. המאמר מתמקד באופן שבו בית ספר לעברית משלים יוצא מגבולות המוסד הלימודי וממסגרת השיעור הפרונטלי והופך לעוגן קהילתי, תרבותי, וחיוני עבור הקהילה המקומית כולה.
From Immersion to Deliberation: A Model for Hebrew Identity Education
In recent years, we have found ourselves returning to a question that feels both old and new: If early Zionist thinkers believed that reviving Hebrew could reshape Jewish life, how might they have imagined teaching it in communities far from the land where it would be revived? We are not historians of Zionist pedagogy, and we do not pretend to reconstruct their educational blueprints. But reading figures such as Ze’ev Jabotinsky alongside other early twentieth-century voices forces us to pause and plan intentionally. For them, Hebrew was never meant to function merely as a school subject. It was imagined as atmosphere, as music, as discipline, as shared inheritance. It was something that would seep into consciousness and form character.
Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of the Revisionist Zionist movement and the Betar youth organization, is often remembered for his political writings and sharp polemics. Yet woven throughout his speeches and essays is a sustained concern with formation.
Language Defines Identity: A Literary Unit on Multilingualism and Multiculturalism
אירועי השבעה באוקטובר ומה שאירע בעקבותיהם היו שבר שהשפעתו עדיין מהדהדת בכול. לא רק שערעור תחושת הביטחון, האמון, והאמונה שלי עצמי הקשו עליי לעמוד בכיתה וללמד ״כרגיל״, גם תלמידיי בצפון קליפורניה הרחוקה והבטוחה חשו שמשהו נסדק. בימים הראשונים שלאחר הטבח, תלמידים אמרו לי שלראשונה בחייהם הם נחשפים לגילויי אנטישמיות וחוששים לביטחונם האישי, או לעסק בעל הנראות היהודית מאוד של משפחתם. הדהימה אותי העובדה שגם בתיכון היהודי הקטן שבו אני מלמדת (180 תלמידים), תלמידים, אנשי סגל ומשפחותיהם הכירו אישית חטופים, ניצולים, לוחמים וחללים.
בשנת הלימודים 2024-2025, תכננתי ללמד את ההקבצה המתקדמת שלנו (כיתות ט׳-יב) קורס בספרות עברית. היחידה שעמה החלטתי לפתוח את השנה עוסקת ברב-לשוניות ורב-תרבותיות, נושא שמעסיק אותי בחיי האישיים והמקצועיים כאחד.
What Would Jabotinsky Expect from a Hebrew Program Today?
In recent years, we have found ourselves returning to a question that feels both old and new: If early Zionist thinkers believed that reviving Hebrew could reshape Jewish life, how might they have imagined teaching it in communities far from the land where it would be revived? We are not historians of Zionist pedagogy, and we do not pretend to reconstruct their educational blueprints. But reading figures such as Ze’ev Jabotinsky alongside other early twentieth-century voices forces us to pause and plan intentionally. For them, Hebrew was never meant to function merely as a school subject. It was imagined as atmosphere, as music, as discipline, as shared inheritance. It was something that would seep into consciousness and form character.
Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of the Revisionist Zionist movement and the Betar youth organization, is often remembered for his political writings and sharp polemics. Yet woven throughout his speeches and essays is a sustained concern with formation.
Resilience in Jewish Education Begins With Hebrew
כמעט שמונה עשורים מהווים בתי הספר “המלך דויד” (King David) ביוהנסבורג רשת של בתי ספר יהודיים, הפועלת תחת חסות ועד החינוך היהודי בדרום אפריקה. הרשת כוללת ארבעה קמפוסים ומציעה חינוך מגיל גן ועד תיכון, במסגרת משותפת לבנים ולבנות, ובה לומדים כיום כ־2700 תלמידים ומלמדים כ־385 מורים. בתי הספר פועלים ברוח אורתודוקסית-מסורתית, תוך פתיחות וקבלת תלמידים ממשפחות יהודיות מגוונות. לצד חינוך כללי ברמה גבוהה, מושם דגש משמעותי על לימודי עברית ולימודי יהדות, כחלק מתפיסה חינוכית הרואה בשפה, במסורת ובקשר למדינת ישראל מרכיבים מרכזיים בזהותם של התלמידים. במסגרת קהילה יהודית מגובשת ובעלת ציפיות ברורות, בתי הספר שואפים לחנך תלמידים בעלי זהות יהודית וציונית, תחושת שייכות, ואחריות כלפי הקהילה והחברה.
כאשר התחלתי להוביל את תחום העברית בבית הספר, הבנתי שהשאלה איננה כמה שעות עברית נלמדות (למרות שאף זו שאלה חשובה), אלא איזה מעמד יש לעברית בתרבות הבית ספרית.
Shinshinim in Schools: An Insider View
The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Jewish Educational Leadership: Many of our readers are familiar with what a shinshin is, but not all. Can you tell us briefly?
Shira Rafalovitz: Sure. Shinshin is short for shenat sherut, a year of service. It is a year of volunteer work that some Israelis do before they start the army. Most people do their sherut in Israel, volunteering in lots of different places, but some of us choose to go overseas to work in schools or Jewish communities where we think that we can help build bridges between Jewish communities around the world and Israel. I got placed in Detroit, where I did most of my work at Frankel Jewish Academy, the high school. I also did some teaching in a Sunday school with younger kids and with a synagogue.
Preparing Shelihim for Transformative Educational Leadership
Ben Porat Yosef (BPY) is an Early Childhood-8th grade Modern Orthodox yeshiva day school (Paramus, NJ). The school was founded 25 years ago, initially as a Sephardic educational institution, and shortly thereafter shifting to our current model as a dual-curriculum Sephardic and Ashkenazic school, where students who hail from either heritage and tradition are welcomed and celebrated. Moreover, the educational program trains our students in the laws, customs, and culture of the varied Sephardic and Ashkenazic traditions.
The other core element of our mission is to develop in our students a love for Am Yisrael, Eretz Yisrael, and Medinat Yisrael. This is executed in a variety of ways, and two central components are our Hebrew Immersion model and our shelihim program.
Many Diaspora day schools aspire to effectively teach Judaic Studies in Ivrit, for both philosophical and educational reasons. However, there are several significant challenges that have likely contributed to less-than-ideal implementation in the broader field.
Cafe Ivrit: Hebrew Conversation & Connection for Supplemental School Students
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 10th 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.
Critical Conceptual Tools with Practical Application for Strengthening Hebrew Language Instruction and Learning
Over the past several years, I’ve found myself in the same conversation again and again with teachers, department chairs, and school leaders who care deeply about Hebrew but feel stuck. Not stuck because of a lack of passion, and not even because of a lack of resources, but because of something harder to name: a lack of shared clarity.
The questions come in different forms: What is the role of Hebrew in Jewish day schools today? Why teach Hebrew? Why learn Hebrew? What is Hebrew meant to accomplish? What should a graduate of a Jewish day school know and be able to do in Hebrew? Who is an effective Hebrew educator? What does effective Hebrew language teaching and learning actually look like?
At first, these questions may sound abstract. However, strong frameworks can help shape very real decisions: how time is used, how teaching is approached, which curricula are chosen, and how educators are supported.
Hebrew 2.0- A Language that Shapes Reality: Hebrew as a Catalyst for Developing Thoughtful, Engaged an Influential Youth
The transformations of the 21st century bring with them fundamental changes in the way we understand second language acquisition processes. Social, cultural, and economic shifts are creating a reality in which intercultural and multilingual interactions are becoming central to our daily lives. In this reality, researchers and educators who teach languages are called upon to be attentive and open to change, and to adapt instruction to evolving contexts, to prepare learners to navigate a complex and unpredictable world. Accordingly, there is a growing need to adopt an updated perspective on second language acquisition, one that is suited to a dynamic reality and reflects the broad cultural and identity-related contexts within which language learning takes place.
Many education systems are now aware of the need for reforms and the renewal of content and teaching methods, so that these may incorporate, as an inherent part of the learning process, the new skills that students require in the 21st century: communication skills, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration.
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