For Non-Orthodox Jews, what do you expect out of Hebrew School, Sunday School, or Jewish Day School?
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Anonymous
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S/o from the temple dues thread.
For those who send or plan to send their child(ren) to some form of organized Jewish education, such as a synagogue Hebrew school or Sunday program, or to a Jewish day school - what are your goals in doing so? What do you hope to get out of it. A list of possible answers, but feel free to say whatever is true for your family. - Hebrew language skills (and maybe Aramaic, Yiddish, or other) - Knowledge of Jewish calendar and holidays - Knowledge of Jewish history, including Holocaust - Proficiency in and understanding of the main daily prayers - Knowledge of day to day halachot: blessings on food, kashrut, Shabbat, etc. - Content knowledge of certain texts (e.g., Torah, Talmud) - Jewish social opportunities, making Jewish friends - Bar/bat mitzva readiness - Knowledge about modern State of Israel - Sense of Jewish community - Jewish identity - Making grandparents happy - A fun experience Being Orthodox myself and familiar with the range of perspectives there, I am mainly interested in hearing from non-Orthodox Jews. |
Anonymous
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- Hebrew language skills
- Knowledge of Jewish calendar and holidays - Knowledge of Jewish history, including Holocaust - Content knowledge of certain texts (e.g., Torah, Talmud) - Jewish social opportunities, making Jewish friends - Bar/bat mitzva readiness - Sense of Jewish community/identity - Making grandparents happy - A fun experience |
Anonymous
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All of the above. I want them to be able to lead/participate in a service, know the holidays, know the history. The sense of community is a big one.
My kids started noticing quickly in ES that their public school friends mostly weren't Jewish and didn't know anything about Judaism. Having shul and camp as spaces to not feel othered was important. Even in early ES teachers would ask my kids to explain the holidays and answers at that age ranged from "matzo ball soup and candles" to "everyone tried to kill us!" I love that as they're getting older they have more well thought out answers, becuase their teachers and friends truly don't know and it's a big responsibility for a kid to have to educate adults. |
Anonymous
| Our kids are fluent in Hebrew, so we don’t see the value in Hebrew school. They spend every summer in Israel, and we enroll them in local camps. During the year they have a Hebrew tutor, and we send them to MoEd for holidays curricula. We attend synagogue every Friday, if we attend on Saturday, there is a junior minyan. We celebrate all the holidays at home with family/friends, so for us this is sufficient. Cannot afford day school, but kids attend lots of Hebrew—language programming, screens only in Hebrew, etc. |
Anonymous
| My attitude is that my kids will have their whole adult life to feel like a minority as a Jew in a predominantly non Jewish country and world. I think giving them the gift of a Jewish day to day world for their first 18 years of life is an amazing gift and foundation. I hope Jewish day school will foster their love of Judaism and our culture and make it feel special to them. |
Anonymous
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We are secular Jews but sent our child to a Jewish day school, Chabad summer camps, and Hebrew school. We did the day school because it was just better than our public (where we had a very bad experience in K), Chabad camps because they are awesome, and Hebrew school since he was doing other Jewish things. I didn't really plan to do all that - at first, it was just a convenience that happened to be Jewish, but I really liked the community and the feeling of being surrounded by Jewish people. It was completely new for me since I grew up in a rural area where there were no Jews, and where we didn't tell anyone we were Jewish.
I feel like I've given my child a chance to belong that I never had, and I don't know that he identifies strongly as Jewish (since we are so much "less" Jewish than all his friends) but I feel like it's something he may someday be very glad he was able to experience. |
Anonymous
| We send our kids to MoEd and Sunday School to give them a Jewish identity in addition to our home life. When they're old enough, we'll also send them to camp. |
Anonymous
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I grew up modern orthodox but am no longer orthodox. I send my kids to Jewish schools and replied in one of the above posts, but I can’t really tell if the above tone is insulting to non-orthodox Jews. Should only Orthodox Jews care about instilling a sense of jewish identity and education in their kids? It’s like asking why conservative or reform Jews “hope to get out of” going to shul, having a bar/bat mitzvah, sitting shiva, visiting israel, making Aliyah, or celebrating Jewish holidays. Why would kids from only orthodox or frum families benefit from a jewish environment and education? If anything, non Orthodox Jews whose day to day is less heavily involved with Jewish rituals have more to gain from a Jewish environment. Having grown up orthodox, this seems like such a common attitude towards the “lesser than” non orthodox.
There are also studies that show the impact that Jewish camps have on kids and their Jewish identity. |
Anonymous
| OP - to PP: you seem to think the question is a challenge. It's not. I attended a pluralistic day school and also a Conservative after school program, both of which I found beneficial in many ways. I just wasn't interested in hearing from fellow Orthodox Jews because I talk to enough of them IRL about education and parenting. |
Anonymous
| I sent my kids to JDS so they didn’t have to go to Hebrew/Sunday school. I never wanted them to feel that they couldn’t participate in something because they had religious school requirements. |
Anonymous
| I wish there were more actual Hebrew in Hebrew school - and even day schools. Most of the Orthodox Jews I know have extremely poor Modern Hebrew - including some Americans who actually live in Israel. I don't think you truly be literate in Judaism without relative fluency in biblical Hebrew/Aramaic - and more emphasis on Modern Hebrew gets you closer to comfort with reading - maybe not leyning - but at least understanding what you are reading. |
Anonymous
Our day school doesn't teach modern spoken Hebrew at all after kindergarten. Hebrew vocabulary and grammar are only done as part of Chumash. The kids are taught to translate from Hebrew and later Aramaic to English, but not to speak conversationally in Hebrew. I would love for that to be part of the curriculum too. |
Anonymous
| PP was me, OP. |
Anonymous
That is really depressing. There are Greek weekend schools for kids, Italian weekend schools for kids, Cantonese/Mandarin schools, Korean, Hindi, you name it. But weekend Hebrew schools have only minimal exposure to Hebrew, and day schools also seem to devote almost no time to Hebrew. What a waste. |
Anonymous
Lots of time spent on Hebrew (or translating from Hebrew) in our case, just not modern spoken or conversational Hebrew. -OP. |