Each morning at 10:30 AM, 50 middle school students at the Ottawa Jewish Community School (OJCS) have to decide where to go for minyan. They can choose to go downstairs to the “Traditional Egalitarian” minyan where they sit in a circle, use a siddur which includes the Conservative version of Birkhot Ha’Shahar and the imahot in the Amidah, and students of any (or no) gender are welcome to function as shaliah tzibur. Or they can choose to go upstairs to the “Traditional” minyan where they sit on either side of a mehitzah, use a siddur which features Orthodox liturgy, and boys are welcome to function as shaliah tzibur. There are students who reliably land in the same minyan morning after morning and there are students who move back and forth for all kinds or reasons.

While day schools bear much of the burden of formal Jewish education, supplementary programs offer unique opportunities to build the Jewish experience. There are many varieties of supplementary programs, including afternoon Hebrew schools, Sunday schools, extracurricular courses, and clubs. Some of these programs are the primary sources of their students’ Jewish experience; others are part of a larger network of opportunities. While each program has its own set of circumstances, there are several challenges with which supplementary programs, by design, must grapple. These obstacles propel supplementary programs to think differently about Jewish education than their full-day counterparts. This paper will briefly explore some of the challenges supplemental program face while extrapolating strategies and practices that can also be useful in day school environments.

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.

Schools are primarily academic institutions. One essential challenge for Jewish studies teachers is trying to instill love for and commitment to Torah and mitzvot in an environment whose primary goal is acquiring knowledge. The parallel challenge is that because schools are interested primarily in achievement, students are generally focused on getting good grades, not on finding meaning and inspiration for life. Furthermore, as schools and classrooms are primarily “top-down” cultures in which the teacher tells the students what they feel is important and the students need to memorize and/or prepare for tests on that information, it is difficult to motivate students to put effort and energy into internalizing the learning, rather than the ability to display intellectual mastery. Finally, Jewish studies teachers, who care passionately about Torah content, in their desire to inspire their students often share what they personally find meaningful. While well-intentioned, what is meaningful to adults is not always meaningful to their students, and for students to develop an authentic personal connection to their spiritual worlds, it is important that they develop the ability to identify and clarify what inspires them.

In an article in the Boston Globe Magazine In Praise of Drudgery (12/18/22), the author describes the boring jobs she used in order to find quiet time in a library, “stealing” hours of work and serving the goal in messy ways. “It was a random and inefficient education [reading books found on shelves], and I was a random and inefficient employee.” In the concluding paragraphs she writes

I often joke that I do my best parenting Shabbat morning before synagogue, when I am drinking my coffee and absorbed in a book. Sitting at my dining room table, I am just present enough to let my children know they are safe and just distracted enough to let them figure out whatever conflict arises. In my mind, I am creating what the British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott termed the “holding environment.”

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.

During the 2021-2022 school year, Irvine Hebrew Day School (IHDS) launched its Yetzira program, a program of extended Jewish studies in our Middle School designed to be a creative and formative learning experience whose name is based on the kabbalistic concepts of creation and/or formation.

For many, a Jewish day school is the epicenter that shapes the Jewish identity and experience of its students. However, it cannot do so in isolation and must be in partnership with families. Schools, an extended Jewish community, are impacted by the diverse experiences and perspectives of their student body. Schools afford students the opportunity to explore and celebrate their Jewish identity, culture, and religious practices, and to learn from one another.