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You’re the Expert on Chagei Tishrei: Rosh Hashanah

This exciting program is individualized for and equally useful to classrooms and camps, schools and centers! It is similar to the method that many scouting groups use to promote experience and award merit badges. Here, children will select and accomplish a certain number of activities and, through their efforts, acquire increasingly higher levels of expertise.

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The End of Jewish Education

The title of this essay, borrowed from the title of Neil Postman’s book “The end of education" (1996) with the addition of Jewish as an adjective qualifying the last word in it (‘education’), plays on the double - meaning of the term 'end': as a purpose, goal or direction and end as a dissolution and termination of any specific event or phenomenon in our human reality. The Hebrew month of Elul, whose acronym is Anee Le’Dodee Ve’Dodee Lee, “I am my lover’s and my lover is mine”, during which we are called upon to conduct a religious-ethical accounting of ourselves and our actions in the way of preparing ourselves to enter into the 10 days of Awe beginning on the first day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, is a very suitable time to address this double-edged question of the ‘end’ of Jewish culture and education.

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Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – Reflecting on Identity

Identity and High Holidays are interrelated. It is during the High Holidays that we closely examine who we are: our actions, our choices, our beliefs, our ideas of right and wrong, and how we have lived up to these expectations. Our identities encompass how we identify with our religious teachings; those we embody, those for which we strive, and those which present conflicts for us. This program helps in understanding the way in which some of the central motifs of these holidays (making amends, self reflection, vowing to be better people, and striving to move closer to the person we want to be) encourage us to examine our identities as Jews.

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Sarah and Hagar: Relevant lessons for early childhood educators

It is time to broaden our approach to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur from apples and honey to include the story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar. There are lessons to be learned from each of these characters and from the ways (positively and negatively) they interacted with each other. Emotions rage, dreams are dashed and fulfilled, messages are misunderstood.Using the story as the vehicle, these lessons can be referred back to throughout the year.
By Maxine Segal Handelman

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A New Year for Us and Our Speech

As we approach the Jewish New Year, we note that this is an intensified period of prayer. Many Jews spend many hours in synagogues throughout the world immersed in the language and thought of the words that bring us closer to G-d. In the midst of these words and this contemplative season, we repent and ask G-d as well as our fellow human beings for forgiveness for the variety of misdeeds we may have committed. We use the words of our prayers and the speech of our mouths to vocalize these thoughts and concerns that emanate from our innermost being, our “meditations of our heart.” The question that this series of lessons poses is what ramifications are found in this experience for our use of speech in our daily lives. As we pray to be better and more focused human beings during the pensive time of the Aseret Yimai Teshuvah, what in our daily actions indicates that we have truly succeeded in this process? Speech is a 24/7 matter in terms of proper use and actions. What we need to keep in mind about our words of speech as we use the words of prayer is the focus of these lessons.

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A Blank Sheet: Here’s to a Colorful New Beginning!

This ludic proposal encouraging group participation broaches the concept of turning a new leaf. Activities focus on Hebrew vocabulary pertaining to Yamim Noraim, the story of Jonah, and the custom of wearing white. It also entails the creation of artistic exhibits and closes with a party, to which families are invited.

The activities in this project can be either carried out as an integrated series, or individually, as per the objectives of the coordinator.

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Principles of Rosh Hashanah

The aim of the program is to look at the different beginnings which took place in the history and culture of the Jewish people and which also left their trails and values within the legacy we have today.
The project is made up of 4 programs:
* Beginnings of a People
* Beginnings of a Jewish Philosophy
* Beginnings of Unity in the Diaspora
* A New Continent, a New Life
Each program was conceived so that it could be implemented on its own. The four programs share an introductory activity; therefore if you wish to use all four programs, the introductory activity should be used only once, at the start of the project.

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