Informal Education
Jumping Into the Currents: The Art of Informal Jewish Education
Joseph Reimer
Rafting down the Colorado River last May, I was hoping not to be the one who falls off. I was sit-ting on the raft next to the guide who had much to tell us about the river and how to ride the rapids. Indeed, as the rapids grew fiercer, I could see her considerable [...]
Informal Jewish Education as Art Form
Barry Chazan
Dear Joe,
Your rafting trip sounds great! As always, you succeed so well in using life to teach us about life. And here I am stuck in my book-filled office trying to “understand” what informal education is. So let me take a stab at it and try to do some straight-laced analytic conceptualizing about the [...]
Jewish Community and the Informal Educator: A New Pact for a New Era
Mark S. Charendoff
I was struck recently, at a gathering of informal Jewish educators, by the passion and commit-ment of those in attendance. Unfortunately, that was not the only thing that struck me. The event, like many others I have seen in the world of informal Jewish education, lacked a certain discipline. People arrived to sessions [...]
Frisbee with Dignity
Debbie Sussman
I am struck by Mark Charendoff’s comment that what struck him at an informal Jewish educators’ conference was passion and commitment. I agree; the rest is commentary! What do we want from the teachers that teach our children? Passion and commitment. What is it when an environmentalist takes our children into the woods and [...]
Informal Education and Jewish Identity Development
Bethamie Horowitz
For the past few years we’ve seen a lot of em-phasis in both the Jewish press and Jewish communal policy on the importance of Jewish education as a way of influencing or ensuring Jewish identity and Jewish continuity. Certainly I believe that Jewish education plays a crucial role. However, much of what we hear [...]
Teenage Boys and Girls: A Jewish World Apart
Leonard Saxe and Shaul Kelner
Today’s American Jewish teenagers are the first to grow up in an era when gender equal-ity is both the law of the land and a principle of non-Orthodox Judaism. Just as our society has removed barriers to women taking leadership positions, so too have non-Orthodox Jewish movements removed barriers to women [...]
