Photography can have a potent impact upon students in two ways: by looking at photographs and by taking photographs. Both of these activities are woven into a curriculum that I have developed in coordination with Avoda Arts, called The Jewish Lens. The program grew out of an experimental course given at the Morasha Jewish Day School in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, in which my photographs were used to teach about Jewish values and community.

I. Looking at photographs

I am a professional photographer whose focus is Jewish life around the globe. I try to understand and in turn highlight nuanced differences among the diverse Jewish communities. What has always captivated me and piqued my curiosity was this unique ancient Jewish experience that I am a part of. Observing the clear divide in looks, customs, and even some traditions among all these Jewish communities strewn around the world, it is fascinating to see that many Jews seem to share a deep connection, common ground, and a sense of responsibility towards each other.

The more I have traveled, the more these differences as well as similarities are apparent. I feel privileged to have the opportunity to be a witness and at the same time exhibit and publish my work. With these exhibits and books, I have come to realize the educational advantage and the impact that photography can have in helping people of any age comprehend and explore ideas.

For teaching to be effective I realized some emotional exchange must happen. I saw it more and more in the effect my work was having on people who came to know it. This was not only an intellectual exercise, but also an emotional one.

My photographs of Jews from different ethnic and religious backgrounds convey a message of Jewish diversity with an immediacy and force that students get right away. Young students often want to be like everyone else. They may feel ashamed about the ways that they or their families stand out—being more religious, less religious, Moroccan, Chasidic, Israeli, converts; they may question their own legitimacy as Jews and want to hide their family’s particularity from their friends and peers. By seeing images of Jews who are like them, within an exhibition of Jews from dozens of different backgrounds, they are overwhelmed with a sense of belonging to the larger tapestry of the Jewish family. Their fears over questions of legitimacy melt away, and they feel a new sense of pride and belonging as the circle of Jewish identities expands in their minds.

This power of photography to educate about Jewish diversity was brought home to me recently when I visited a school in Jerusalem with a predominantly Ethiopian student body. Seeing pictures of Ethiopian Jews alongside Jews from Yemen, Uzbekistan, Poland, Hungary, Iran, the United States, and other countries made the students feel a part of the larger Jewish world in a way that many had never fully grasped before.

II. Taking photographs

The struggle that educators have in making texts relevant to students is nothing new. The traditional Jewish approach to learning has been cerebral. Intellectual dissection of ancient as well as contemporary texts has been the norm for millennia. Of course, the problem with this approach is that not everyone is cut out for it. Many students do not thrive on intellectual challenge, just as others do not succeed in expressing themselves through writing. These students need other avenues.

It seemed natural to me to use my photographs as a springboard to teach about Jewish values. Asking students to use cameras to express themselves and explore their identity and surrounding community can be a great experiential learning tool. Students use photography to give voice to their own sense of themselves, their families, and their communities. They are given an assignment to create a collage of portraits which enables them to discuss the complex web of relationships surrounding them. They come to understand how their own identity is enmeshed in the circle of Jewish life in which they live.

By holding a camera and focusing it upon the people and spaces in their world, students undertake experiential learning that gives them a tremendous sense of empowerment. Standing behind the camera not only trains them to look at their environment with fresh eyes; it enables them to control it to some extent, cutting it through shot selection and photo cropping to express what they feel about their world. The process of framing and selection in photography gives students tools to become more conscious of many things in their lives that they are then able to articulate and discuss in words through critical reflection. They discover that photography is another language to be explored and analyzed, just like written texts. What photography enables these learners to do is to engage with Jewish tradition, ideas, community, and symbols in ways that significantly supplement other kinds of Jewish learning that takes place in Jewish day schools.

Increasingly, educators are realizing that the arts are not an addition to the real learning within a school, but are essential means for learning in all areas of study. Through its power and immediacy, photography has the potential to reach many students who are turned off by more traditional learning methods. Schools should consider the many ways that both viewing and taking photographs can engage students in both Jewish and secular studies. ♦

For more information about The Jewish Lens, please call Program Director Karen Jarmon at 917-558-9018 or e-mail her at [email protected]. Or go to the program’s website at www.JewishLens.com.

What does it take to cultivate young Jewish artists? We have been learning a great deal about this subject at BIMA over the last five years. While our setting enables us to devote significantly more time to the arts than a typical day school schedule would allow, our core concepts might be adaptable to a wide variety of settings.

Our program is guided by three central commitments: (1) artistic growth, (2) Jewish exploration, learning, and commitment, and (3) pluralistic Jewish community. These commitments are interrelated and inform each other throughout the summer, creating a unique, holistic approach to learning and teaching in a Jewish environment.

Artistic Growth

A strong arts program takes seriously the growth and education of young artists. Our focus in BIMA’s arts majors is not on “Jewish art” or “Jewish music.” Rather, our primary goal is to guide the participants as they advance their skills, learn new techniques, expand their repertoire, and pursue excellence in their artistic disciplines. Our approach includes:

Technique and Skill Development

Faculty members work with participants to advance their technical skills in their artistic disciplines. This involves instruction, directed assignments, structured group and individual work, and faculty coaching.

Self-Direction

Being an artist requires more than exceptional skills and techniques. Artists who aspire to “make it” must have the ability to conceive their own work and develop their own artistic style. They should also have sophisticated notions of what art is and where it can happen. The arts faculty works with students to understand the artistic process and to prepare them (technically, conceptually, and personally) to create their own work.

Structured Individual Practice Time

Serious pursuit of artistic growth involves dedicated practice. Without it, artists in any discipline are limited in their potential for development. Teachers should aim to instill in participants a commitment to regular, deliberate practice. They should build practice time into the daily schedule for all of our arts majors. Faculty members model this commitment through their own daily practice, and they provide guidance for participants to create structures and goals for their practice time.

Collaboration

Arts programs should include opportunities for collaborative work. They should also encourage cross-major collaboration on specific projects and performances. Naturally, ensemble work is inherent in music and theater, but artistic collaborations have also become an important part of other artistic disciplines, including visual arts and writing. The ability to work with other artists is thus an essential skill. Beyond skill building, collaborative work is a cooperative way to experience the artistic process, and it creates an alternative focus when a break from individual work is needed. The faculty members guide participants as they learn to work together to create collaboratively, and they model collaboration in their own work and their faculty performances.

Peer Critique

Art is not only about creating, but also about viewing, listening to others and being able to respond verbally to others’ work. Commenting on the work of fellow participants, as well as receiving peer and professional artists’ comments on their own work, are integral experiences for participants in every arts major.

Challenge and Risk

Pushing yourself to try new experiences and take risks within a supportive environment leads to growth and increased self-confidence. Members of the arts faculty should work hard to create a safe environment where participants can take artistic risks and challenge themselves and each other. Faculty members also can work with participants individually to identify areas for growth, and to set and regularly evaluate realistic goals that will challenge students over the course of a program.

Reflection

The deepest learning takes place when participants have time to reflect on what they have experienced and find personal relevance and meaning. Time for both individual and group reflection ought to be built into all elements of a class or program.

Immersion in an Artistic Community and Exposure to World Class Culture

For most participants, a summer at BIMA is the first time they have ever experienced immersion in an artistic community. We spend significant time considering what it means to be a community of Jewish artists and working together to create a dynamic context for artistic discovery and creativity. We also strive to develop a sense that our participants are part of a larger artistic community, beyond our campus. We expose our participants to world-class artists through trips to performances and exhibitions in Greater Boston and in the Berkshires, as well as workshops and performances by guest artists we bring to campus. Likewise, schools can facilitate opportunities for student artists to become part of artistic communities in the society beyond the walls of the school.

Jewish Exploration

Jewish day schools have a unique opportunity to spark Jewish creativity and examine the intersection between Jewish identity and the creative process. Jewish creativity depends upon Jewish learning and exploration. Participants at BIMA engage in a rich program of Jewish learning that includes (1) Shabbat planning and celebration, (2) arts workshops that integrate the pursuit of an artistic discipline with Jewish texts, values, or traditions, and (3) personal and group exploration of the intersection between Jewish identity and artistic identity.

Pluralistic Jewish Community

We believe that interaction among teens of diverse backgrounds (Jewishly, artistically, educationally, geographically) enhances Jewish learning and creativity. We further believe that exchanges among artists of different disciplines enrich artistic growth. Schools might include opportunities for dialogue, collaboration, and relationship building across arts majors and among participants with different backgrounds.

These three commitments form an integrated approach that results in a vibrant community packed with artistic discovery and Jewish exploration. At the best Jewish art programs, students come away not only with a serious commitment to pursuing the arts, but also with strengthened commitment to Judaism and Jewish community. ♦

Jewish educators need to start by considering the value of music education in a day school curriculum. First, music is an integral part of our heritage. From the Levites in the Temple, Torah cantillation, and the sing-song of yeshiva study to chazzanut and Jewish composers of high and popular music, Jewish culture and tradition have always been nurtured by the wellsprings of musical inspiration. Second, studies suggest that music holds great value in cultivating a range of good outcomes in students, from self-discipline to fine motor skills to superior mathematical aptitude. Third, most people believe that music is inherently valuable and should be taught as a subject in its own right. From the earliest age, children are drawn to music; schools should help cultivate this innate musicality with all means available throughout their education. The level of music education, therefore, is a good index to a day school’s Jewish and cultural education overall.

Let me offer some observations about where Jewish day school music education is today. In the youngest grades, one can find extensive and innovative examples of music learning and music making. Music plays an important role in many Jewish day school curricula at this early stage. In many schools, young day school students sing, listen, play, study, and create music. It represents the point of greatest overlap with music curricula found in public and secular private schools that aim to teach music according to government-mandated standards. (To learn about those standards, go to the website of the National Association for Music Education: http://www.menc.org/resources/view/the-school-music-program-a-new-vision.)

However, as students move into middle school, there is a growing disparity between day school and non-day school music curricula. The dual-curriculum demands of a day school, and the need to fit more subjects into a given day, often squeeze music out of the mix. Jewish day schools frequently do not hire enough music educators, or hire music educators who are unaware of the music opportunities being offered in the non-day school settings. The middle school years also pose a new challenge to music educators. Whereas early grades are more likely to have a homogenous group when it comes to the child’s music education, by the fifth or sixth grade there is much greater differentiation in students’ musical ability and knowledge, though not in their interest. Many day schools cannot meet the challenge of a differentiated music education for this age group.

By the time one reaches the high school grades, the disparity in musical knowledge and ability (again, not musical interest) between those students who consider themselves “musicians” and those who consider themselves “non-musicians” is at its greatest. In addition, the number of students who consider themselves “musicians” typically shrinks, as students who had once studied music privately do not continue into their high school years. From a curricular standpoint, many Jewish high schools offer the kinds of music experiences that resemble more closely Jewish lower school curricula than non-day school high school curricula. At a time when teenagers demonstrate a high level of musical interest, it is unfortunate that many Jewish high schools do not offer the range of music experiences that their non-Jewish counterparts frequently do.

Nevertheless, the landscape is not uniformly bleak. Some Jewish schools succeed in providing more extensive and varied musical experiences in the middle and high school years. Many day schools offer band and chorus options at both the middle and upper school level. Often, the particular interests of a music teacher, or even a group of students, will dictate the courses or clubs offered. These have included the more typical chamber music or jazz ensemble to less conventional offerings like a barbershop quartet and a percussion ensemble. Some day schools have instituted “conservatory-style” programs, with private instrumental instruction.

In non-performance areas, several Jewish high schools offer music appreciation courses that introduce students to key areas of Western music literature and theory. Some offer courses in honors or Advanced Placement music theory as well. A few day schools offer courses in choral arranging, where students use their knowledge of music theory to write original harmonies for choir songs that are then performed by the school’s ensembles. One school teaches students to write and perform original fugues as part of their music history curriculum.

As a choral director, I have seen a resurgent interest in vocal music in particular at the high school level, both in terms of solo and ensemble singing. Influences as varied as American Idol, Hazamir (the national Jewish teen choir), and contemporary a cappella have come together in recent years to generate renewed interest in singing at many Jewish day schools. At the same time, a stricter adherence to kol isha (the Talmudic prohibition of listening to a woman sing) in many Orthodox high schools has made mixed choral singing—and in some cases, choral singing altogether—a thing of the past.

While acknowledging persistent challenges of time and funding, schools still have numerous options for improving their music programs. For starters, Jewish day school music educators can learn a great deal from their non-day school colleagues; they should visit other schools for inspiration and ideas to take back with them. For schools looking to broaden their students’ music education, one approach can be interdisciplinary, such as using musical rhythms to help teach fractions in a lower school mathematics class, or studying and performing the music of a particular culture in a high school social studies course. Other opportunities include using local talent to supplement current music offerings. A parent musician, a vocal or instrumental teacher, or a community conductor could be brought into the school to offer on-site instruction. Through a combination of scheduled classes and extracurriculars, day schools should maximize their own and their communities’ resources in developing their students’ talent and passion for music. ♦

Tell us about your musical life today and your accomplishments as a musician.

My band is called DeLeon. We play Sephardic folk songs, but they come out sounding like rock songs. The songs are either in Ladino, Hebrew or are translated into English. I’m the front man as well as the guitarist and banjoist. We’ve got our first record coming out on JDub in a few months. I became involved with JDub via another band I’m in called The LeeVees, known internationally for their original pop-rock Hanukkah songs. I’ve been playing in bands since high school and had my greatest commercial success with a band I was in while in college. We were on Atlantic Records, had videos on MTV and toured the east coast with Outkast. Our debut on TRL and album release were on 9/11/01 and given the goofy upbeat nature of our record, for obvious reasons it didn’t sell as many copies as the label was hoping. Our next album was more serious and sophisticated, and as far as I know is gathering dust in an Atlantic Records broom closet, having never been released.

In recent years there’s been much talk of a “renaissance” of Jewish music. Do you feel that’s true and that there is a new Jewish music scene?

I’m no ethnomusicologist, but I bet at any time it would seem like there is a renaissance in Jewish music, be it Mickey Katz, Shlomo Carlebach, John Zorn, or The Klezmatics. Jews love to rediscover and reinterpret their heritage. Those names are just from the last 50 years, but I’m confident you could go back as far as you’d like and find Jewish music innovation. Nowadays with the web and home production it’s easier to be aware of all the innovation going on, and easier to be part of a scene. There are Jewish musicians using sampling, and drawing from other cultures and blending any and all influences into their music to create new Jewish sounds. Jewish music has the unique ability to be secular and Jewish at the same time, unlike say Christian music. So Jewish musicians can mine the culture in an infinite amount of ways without being restricted by the confines that come along with being a religious musician.

Tell us about your day school background.

I attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Maryland, from K to 12. A long while, especially for a kid from PG [Prince George’s] County, frequently over an hour commute away. I remain friends with a number of kids from my class, and one of them happens to be our bassist, Kevin Snider. I have nothing to compare the quality of my education to, but I’m told it was good. I teach music part time in Bronx public schools now and I’m thankful that we had smaller classes than they do, but I’m envious of the diversity of students and classes that they have. It’s strange to think that we had minyan every morning. I sometimes enjoyed it because I was so very tired by the time I got to school and it was a mellow transition into the day, but I have memories of teachers hassling me to pray and that’s not a policy I agree with. What was nice is that it was a small pond so I was able to participate in just about anything I pleased, which tended to manifest itself for me in musical ways.

When did you start to get into music?

I’ve been an omnivorous music listener for as long as I can remember. I have distinct memories of being a music snob in kindergarten, showing off my Van Halen tapes and wearing out my Queen mix. I took piano lessons from ages 6-10 and got into guitar in middle school because my brother had one and I liked how loud it went. I also began taking drum lessons around that time. By eighth grade I was in a band with other kids from my class and was in at least two other bands by the time I graduated. JDS didn’t have a high school music department until a group of musicians from our class persuaded the school to create one. They ended up hiring my drum teacher who guided the newly formed school band through classics by Hall and Oates, Steely Dan, and The Jackson 5. Around that time the band I was playing with became the school pep band, and played alongside school basketball games. We had a song attributed to each kid on the team that in some way referenced their personality or musician they liked—i.e., Ben Landy liked Leadbelly so we played “Alabama Bound” each time he scored. Like I said, since it was a small pond we could basically write a lot of our own rules.

Did the day school give you a solid musical training?

More significant than the actual musical training I got at JDS was the environment of being around other musical people and being able to do things like the pep band and the school band without much interference. A part of that is because a good percentage of my classmates were well off enough that their parents had bought them electric guitars or drum kits, and had basements or garages we could practice in. I realize what an advantage that was now that I teach in a lower income school. My students for the most part only have access to the guitars that belong to the school. Other than that, there wasn’t any musical training to speak of for most of my time at the school.

When were you first aware that you wanted to be a professional musician?

There are professional musicians? That sounds great! I think I’ve always wanted to be a professional musician, well at one point, I wanted to be a space scientist, which I would still like to be. I’ve also always been aware of how hard it is to make a living being a musician, and for the last couple of years of high school and my first few years of college I was set to become a union organizer. I had a longtime fascination with the labor movement that was born out of the union songs my dad used to play in carpool, but music kept interfering so despite my efforts at saving myself from a life of guitarmony, my quest for workers’ rights had to take a back seat to being on tour.

Did your day school instill in you a sense of being a Jewish musician?

I think my growth as a musician and as a Jew both have roots at the day school, but it wasn’t until relatively recently that those two aspects of my identity began to merge in this way. There’s no doubt that having the background that I have and a core group of friends with the same background surely has something to do with the fact that I’ve found myself exploring the world of Jewish music. In some ways I think me being a Jewish musician is a continuation of a family trade. My father is a rabbi in the DC area, and I see a lot of similarities between his work and mine. The sharing of ideas from a stage and desire to be a community leader plays a role in both of our professions.

What does being a Jewish musician mean to you?

Well, I’ll put it like this. In college, when I was choosing my rap name, because at that time kids in college required rap names, I chose Shank Bone Mystic. “Shank Bone” because I’m all about seder. And “Mystic” because I’m a descendant of great kabbalists. Being Jewish is a malleable quality that can be approached from any number of artistic angles. I’ve chosen to call myself Shank Bone Mystic and play songs about love, G-d, murder, and vice on the electric guitar and banjo in Ladino and that’s how I am a Jewish musician. But that won’t be everyone’s take on it.

What would you like to tell aspiring musicians who attend Jewish day schools today?

Quit messing around and form a band. ♦

In this article I want to give you an impression of the method by walking you through a bibliodramatic “lesson” developed for sixth graders. My explicit goal, from a content point of view, is to acquaint students with three things: 1. the major features of the family saga of Abraham; 2. a methodology of midrashic investigation; 3. the connection between an ancient text and modern life. At the end of this essay I will say something about the pedagogical goals and values implicit in the method itself. (For a far more complete discussion of this method, readers are referred to my book Scripture Windows: Towards a Practice of Bibliodrama.)

As facilitator with the text in hand, I begin by looking at the first mention of Abram and Sarai in Genesis 11:29-30, focusing on the figure of Sarai, “barren and childless.” After making sure everyone understands childless (ein valad) and barren (akarah)—both its English meaning and the Hebrew with its sense of being uprooted rather than sterile—I make my first bibliodramatic role assignment. “You are Sarai,” I say to the class. “What is it like to be akarah, to be childless and barren.” I validate the answers I hear and in so doing develop their trust that I am not seeking a single right answer but rather seeking to develop as many answers as possible. (This is, after all, one of my goals, that they understand the pluralistic nature of midrashic exploration, for midrash is fundamentally an anti-reductive methodology: the more the merrier.)

Then I move on to Genesis 12:1-3, distilling from those verses the implicit fact that Abram is being told he will become the father of a great nation. “Father,” I repeat, and then to the class: “You are Abram and you have just been told by G-d that you are to become the father of a great nation. What do you think about that? What are all the different thoughts you have about that?” And among them I hope to hear—and if I do not I will supply it—the concern about who is to be the mother of that great nation.

I recount their departure to Canaan, the famine, the trip to Egypt, the return to Canaan, and finally to Chapter 16, my next stopping place. We read verses one through three; I make sure we understand that Hagar is now a part of this clan, that though the norms of this society are somewhat different from ours, we can still understand the issues of surrogacy and adoption. And then I ask, “So Sarai, why now? Why after ten years do you make this suggestion to your husband?” And I may also ask Abram to tell me what Sarai’s proposal is like for him. And also, “You Hagar, what is it like for you when your mistress tells you to have a child with her husband?” I trust my readers can imagine the welter of possible answers that spring from these questions.

I then tell the class that in fact a child is born, a son, Ishmael, and though he may or may not know who his “real mother” is, he does know that Abram is his father. I then put out four chairs facing the class. I have prepared these chairs in advance, and each chair has a name on it: Abram, Sarai, Hagar, Ishmael; and I say to the class, “I want you to imagine that when Ishmael is seven years old, his father Abram, decides he wants to have a family photograph.” (No one minds the anachronism.) I continue, “He summons the most famous Canaanite photographer and explains what he wants. And the photographer asks Abram to arrange the family (the chairs) to present the family as he wants it to be captured.” The class is now looking at the chairs in front of them, which are arranged in a simple line, one beside the other. I say to the class, “You are Abram. Arrange the chairs the way you want the family photograph to look.” Slowly at first, and then with mounting eagerness, students come up to make their arrangements, and after each arrangement I ask one student, “You are Abram: what does this arrangement mean? Why is Sarai to your left and Hagar to your right?” To another student, “Why is Ishmael placed in front of you and Hagar behind Sarai?” Sometimes students cannot quite articulate why they have done what they have done; sometimes if I ask them to account for their positionings, they become self-conscious. In such cases, then, I do most of the interpreting, and though I suspect that in some ways the students may be showing something about their own family dynamics, I keep the focus entirely on the family of Abram, and I keep inviting different possible family arrangements. After each students presents his or her version and after the brief interpretation, I thank each of them as they sit back down.

Then—and before everyone has had a chance to do their photo arrangement—I say that the Canaanite photographer has to leave, but just before he does, Sarai approaches him and asks if she may have her chance to create a family photo arrangement. He says yes, invites her to arrange the chairs her way, and so we go off on round two. And then round three with Hagar, and finally round four with Ishmael.

By now, everyone is involved and even if a student does not actually get out of his or her seat to make an arrangement of the chairs, he or she is deeply involved. What students are learning at this phase in the lesson is how point of view determines meaning, which is something they know on one level but have perhaps never seen so fully demonstrated.

The above chair exercise may take as long as fifteen or twenty minutes depending on the size of the class. In facilitating a Bibliodrama, I find that it is useful to always leave some hands in the air so that the process does not reach a point of exhaustion. However, I want to make sure that everyone has a first turn before anyone gets seconds.

I thank all the students. I thank the imaginary Canaanite photographer, and I move on to the next part of the story. “Many years pass,” I say. “Ishmael grows to young manhood and then, quite unexpectedly, Sarai is told that she will become a mother and have a child of her own. Which, in fact, she does. And she bears Abraham a son, Isaac.” And now I turn a fifth chair to face the group with Isaac’s name on it; again I have prepared this beforehand. It is a dramatic moment in the class; and even though hands may be raised of students now wanting to reconfigure the family in the light of the new arrival, I do not (usually) go in that direction.

Instead I say: “Let me read to you what happens next.” I turn to Chapter 21, explain about the feast that Abraham throws for Sarah and Isaac, and then I read verses 9-14: “And Sarah saw the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had born to Abram playing…” Here I pause, and we look at the Hebrew word translated as playing (in some versions “mocking”) and notice how it is related to Isaac’s name. “Playing, laughing—yitzchaking around, like horsing around—and Sarah said to Abraham, ‘Cast out that slave woman and her son, for the son of that slave woman shall not share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.’”

“You are Abraham,” I say to the class: “What is that like for you?” And we explore this moment bibliodramatically in Abraham’s role, and then I ask Hagar and Ishmael what this moment is like for them, and finally I ask Isaac. And after again exploring and validating the range of feelings and responses, I move the chairs myself, with Sarah and Isaac on one side, Abraham in the middle, and Hagar and Ishmael on the other side; and then slowly I turn Hagar’s and Ishmael’s chairs so that the names can no longer be seen. “Banishment,” I say. “Garesh” in the Hebrew, and I ask them to hear Hagar’s own name in the word, the ger, the stranger, the estranged one.

I am moving now towards the conclusion of my lesson. “Only once after this,” I tell the class, “do Ishmael and Isaac meet again in the Torah, and that is at the grave of their father, where Sarah is also buried.” And I bring the class to Chapter 25:9, “His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him…” I wonder aloud what the two half brothers might be thinking and feeling as they bury their father—and here I will turn Isaac’s chair and Ishmael’s until they are facing one another.

Sometimes students will offer their own thoughts; sometimes students want to sit in the chairs and talk to the other sibling; sometimes I have the students write what one character or the other is feeling, or wants to say. Sometimes I have them do a torn-paper midrash project to represent this scene. (See Jo Milgrom, Homemade Midrash, for a description of this invaluable method.) But my point in this drama is not to play out the scene. Usually there is too little time left and I have a final demonstration I wish to make.

I remind them that Isaac is the father of the Jewish people, for descended from him are Jacob and from Jacob the children of Israel. And from Ishmael? I ask. Some already know and I make sure all do, that Ishmael is seen as the progenitor of a great nation also, the Arabs, who in time become Islam. In other words, each son traces his lineage and legitimacy back to Abraham.

And where, I ask, where are these two brothers still facing one another? And now we come into the present historical moment and we are seeing how the relationship between Isaac and Ishmael in the Bible connects to the political relationships in Israel.

The bell rings at this point and we disperse.

I want to end by itemizing some of the values implicit in the bibliodramatic approach. The first is the way it exercises what I would like to call imaginative empathy, the ability to stand in someone else’s shoes. The second is pluralism which the many-voiced nature of the bibliodramatic exploration demonstrates by showing and validating that there is no one right answer. Third, the method offers empowerment because it helps students find their own voices and visions and versions of the biblical text and recognize the validity of their points of view. Fourth, it is tradition-centered, because in creating contemporary midrash the teacher puts the student into the ancient Jewish conversation about text and meaning. Bibliodrama places students in the same context as the classic commentators, looking with them rather than just to them as interpreters of text. And finally it is a method that promotes literacy by placing the study of particular Hebrew words or phrases in a context charged by the experiential.

Needless to say this essay outlines only one of a multitude of possible ways of using Bibliodrama in the classroom. ♦

Starting with the symbolic motifs worked into Torah arks, gravestones, and elaborate papercuts, the exhibition illuminated the inspiration many carousel carvers drew from traditional sacred carvings for the animated carousel figures they created. We positioned the themes of symbolism and immigration as the central thrust behind our tours for elementary, middle, and high school tours in “Gilded Lions.” Our goals for all groups visiting the exhibition were to develop observation and communication skills; reveal Jewish immigrant artists’ contributions to American folk art; develop critical thinking skills through comparisons of objects; and understand the concept of symbolism, especially as a means to trace the adaptation of visual culture.

All tours began with a discussion of students’ cultural histories. Because many students who visited the exhibition had personal or familial histories of immigration, they identified with a desire to retain a sense of cultural identity. These preliminary discussions set the stage for an exploration of Jewish immigration to the United States and the ways in which communities have continued traditions while simultaneously adapting to a new lifestyle in America.

Students of all ages examined these shifting identities through symbolism. For example, many tours started at a lavish papercut from Europe, which allowed students to consider symbols such as the lion and the double-headed eagle that represented Prussia. By examining more sacred and secular objects that Jewish immigrant artisans created, students began to trace a translation of visual culture: While the hands of the kohanim and lions often persisted throughout various forms, the Prussian double-headed eagle shifted into a single-headed, unquestionably American one draped in red, white, and blue in American papercuts, and the features of the mythical creatures of European papercuts morphed into lively carousel figures. Viewing the Decalogues, flanked by lions, and carousel figures side by side, students saw how woodcarvers transferred their skills from one form to another by adapting their visual language, including expressive lions’ manes and tails.

Though the exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum has closed, the surprising connection that “Gilded Lions” revealed between Jewish immigrant woodcarvers and the American carousel industry offers opportunities for classroom discussion about major Jewish contributions to American history and culture. Educators can explore these contributions with their students in the classroom through the exhibition website, www.gildedlions.org. In addition to an overview of the exhibition, the site highlights synagogues, Torah arks, gravestones, papercuts, and carousels through enlargeable images and background information about each form. After a few moments of quiet looking, teachers can engage students in discussion by asking them what they see happening in each image and encouraging students to back up interpretations with visual evidence. In small groups, students can compare and contrast the exhibition objects with those that they see in their daily lives, such as Decalogues or Torah arks. In addition, students can compare arks, papercuts, and carousel horses to discern which elements of visual language artists have carried from one art form to another.

Even without exhibition images, “Gilded Lions” uncovered important aspects of Jewish life in the United States that are relevant for classroom discussion. Some conversation topics the exhibition has sparked for us include:

History of Jewish immigration to the United States: Starting with the reception by Peter Stuyvesant of Brazilian Jews transported to New Amsterdam in the 1650s, immigrant Jews have had a substantial presence in the American cultural landscape. Students can discuss where Jews have emigrated from, their reasons for emigration, and their major cultural contributions.

Rise of Coney Island: Coney Island, initially conceived as a seaside haven for the wealthy, eventually declined into what some called “Sodom by the Sea” before revitalization brought amusement parks and carousels to attract families. Students can explore this cultural history, approaching it as a microcosm of larger forces at play in American culture.

The development of leisure time industries: For many European immigrants in the early twentieth century, leisure time was a new experience; not only did American life include this phenomenon, entire industries were dedicated to it in the form of amusement parks. Students can compare the life of a first-generation child born in the United States to that of their parents in Eastern Europe. The skills that carvers transferred from sacred carvings to secular ones such as carousels serve to illustrate this comparison.

Teaching from “Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses” with both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences has been an incredibly rewarding experience for us. Our hope is that the important contributions that immigrant Jewish artisans have made to American folk art will continue to inspire students and educators for years after the exhibition’s conclusion. ♦

Numerous studies have shown that when children interact with objects they acquire new ways of looking at the world. Object-centered, hands-on learning based in an informal museum environment can create avenues for exploring a wide range of subjects. To quote the Chinese proverb: “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.” It’s this mantra that forms the basis of the growing field of museum education which is today an integral part of the general museum world. Together with school systems throughout America, museum educators are redefining how teachers can incorporate museum exhibitions into their classroom.

It’s profoundly exciting to see museums and schools working in tandem, as partners, to educate our children. Yet although thousands of American school children visit museums of one sort or another each year, there are tens of thousands more who do not. Since we know that the type of active learning experiences that take place in museums can truly be transformative, why aren’t museum visits a standard teaching tool for every teacher? And for the purpose of this essay, why aren’t more Jewish day schools using visits to museums to enhance not only classroom lessons for the purpose of meeting state standards, but to fulfill their commitment to imbue students with a common historical memory? Jewish museums in particular, with their treasure trove of artifacts, both ancient and new, can serve as an incubator for growing these memories and help generate interest in a vast array of Jewish subjects.

I’ve come to the conclusion that before you can have a shidduch there must be a courtship. It’s not fair to presume that just because museums and schools share common goals, the matchmaking process will be easy. Both are settings geared to learning, but the methods or strategies used are quite different. So I’d like to act the part of the shadchan, or matchmaker, and provide some tips that should help schools and teachers create lasting partnerships between two very different, but compatible, educational institutions.

Where to begin? Jewish schools in America have a host of potential “partners.” The Council of Jewish American Museums (CAJM) has nearly eighty institutional members spread across the continent, ranging from large institutions with vast collections to synagogues and Jewish Community Centers, some with just a few display cases. The American Association of Museums (AAM) lists more than three thousand institutional members that include museums of every type: art, history, cultural specific, science, aquariums, botanical gardens, children’s museums, planetariums, nature centers, and zoos. Today, most museums have educators who reach out to connect with teachers and students. With all these choices, one would think making a shidduch would be easy. Not true.

A report published by AAM suggested that “education is the primary purpose of museums,”—easier said than done. If this is the main purpose of museums, then one of the museums’ target audiences, teachers and their students in grades K-12, have to contend with a number of issues that often complicate what many would think a “no brainer”—the school field trip.

Lack of funding, increased prices in transportation, longer school days, class scheduling conflicts, testing schedules, vacation days, and most importantly, the need to meet standardized curricular requirements stand in the way of visits to museums and other cultural venues. When it comes to Jewish schools and Jewish museums, there are the added challenges of working around and with the Jewish holiday schedule, and the fact that Jewish curriculum is often not standardized by grade. But the largest hurdle to overcome is the notion that museum programs are simply “add-ons” or supplements to lessons, not an integral part of the learning experience.

And what about the challenges faced by museum educators? Museum programs and curriculum decisions are guided by a number of factors besides state educational standards. Some but not all of the challenges include the type of museum, the general collection or theme of a particular exhibition, gallery capacity and layout, classroom availability, exhibition design, number of staff and docents, hours open to the public, competing programs, profit or not-for-profit status, storage space, and even available parking. Add to this the often daunting task of outreach to the desired audience. How to contact the teachers? There are a number of methods, but most often museum educators get school contact information from school district headquarters and the Internet. And more often than not, the school program brochures and invitations are sent to a school administrator and then, depending upon the administrator’s decision, the teachers may or may not find out about the program. But once a teacher contacts the museum, voilà—the teacher’s name is in a database and it’s a “keeper.”

There is a better way. Teachers should be proactive.

Approach a field trip as you would any of your own lesson plans. Make “out-of-the-box” learning experiences a part of your standard teaching repertoire. Do your homework—visit museums in your area and ask about their education programs. Check out their offerings online. (Many have lesson plans that can be downloaded.) Introduce yourself to the education staff. Ask to be put on their mailing list. Look at museum offerings with a different set of eyes. If the program they offer doesn’t fit well with your curriculum, but you do see some links, consider creating your own tour and materials. Talk with the educators about how you might create your own object-based learning program. If they have a collection of Egyptian artifacts, can you link these to a lesson about Passover and the Exodus? Artifacts from Revolutionary War America? Create a lesson linked to Hayim Solomon and the earliest Jewish communities in the Colonies. Ask if the museum has materials or images to loan for classroom use. Offer to help create curricula or to help the museum test new lesson plans. Attend teacher training workshops and take advantage of the increasing number of professional development programs offered by museums around the country. Do they offer distance learning or multi-session partnership opportunities? Ask. And remember, don’t ignore the small museums. Though they may not have collections (or staff) to rival the mega-museums, they’ll be thrilled to help you educate your students.

But keep in mind that like future marriage partners, you must take into account basic differences. Museum exhibitions are generally planned years in advance. This creates a challenge for museum educators who must book school tours early, often before schools have set up their own schedules for the coming year. To plan tours for an exhibition that opens in the fall usually requires booking dates in the spring of the preceding school year, or at the latest, during the summer when so many teachers are on vacation. If your name is on the museum’s mailing list, you’ll have first chance to arrange a visit.

When a museum-school shidduch works well, students are the ultimate winners.

A case in point is a sixth grade class that visits the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles to study “Archaeology of the Ancient Near East,” a topic that meets state standards. The teacher is provided with a pre-visit lesson containing hands-on replicas and other interactive materials. During the museum visit, students view actual artifacts from sites in and around Israel and participate in a dig at the appropriately named Kiryat HaMalachim (City of the Angels) where they uncover an “Iron Age” Israelite village. Then, using prior knowledge and the clues they uncovered, plus illustrative quotes from Torah, they figure out what happened at the site. The thrill of discovery is obvious, and year-after-year teachers return to replicate the experience with a new group of students.

In today’s fast-paced high-tech world, our children face demands to learn new ways to approach problem solving. Physical interaction, or “hands-on” learning, engages the learner and demands different ways of thinking. We know that by providing students with alternate paths to knowledge we can help stimulate the struggle with ideas, or more simply, teach them to “think.” For Jewish schools and museums, particularly Jewish museums, this shidduch can lead to a “marriage made in heaven.” ♦

It is too early to know quite what impact this huge investment will have on the overall numbers, but there is little doubt it has galvanised the community and re-engaged many Jews, as well as producing thousands of young, self-confident Jewish high school graduates. Many of the schools have established enviable academic reputations and the vast majority are oversubscribed. Furthermore, in parts of the country, such as Liverpool and Birmingham, where the Jewish population is insufficient to fill the available places, the schools have become first choices for non-Jewish parents, especially amongst Muslims, creating a vibrant mix.

Extending choice in Jewish education

Yet, until now, one vital ingredient has been missing in the growing range of choices available to Jewish parents: every one of the UK’s Jewish secondary schools (11-18 year olds) has been administered under the auspices of mainstream Orthodoxy. This has meant that the Jewish Studies curriculum is taught only from an Orthodox perspective and pupils do not learn about faiths other than Judaism. Children whose mothers have converted to Judaism through any synagogue movement other than Orthodox are not admitted as equals. And the religious authorities of these schools have even been known to reject conversions through the Israeli Orthodox movement.

Masorti, Reform, and Liberal parents (the three non-Orthodox Jewish movements in the UK), who together make up around 35% of our community, have been forced to chose between a Jewish education for their children which excludes progressive traditions from their curriculum, or a non-Jewish education altogether.

Now all that is set to change, with the launch—in September 2010—of the UK’s first cross-communal Jewish state secondary school, JCoSS (Jewish Community Secondary School).

Growing numbers

Already, there are three cross-communal Jewish elementary schools in Britain, for children from 5-11 years old, attracting a total of more than a thousand children, drawn from traditions from secular to Orthodox. Each of the schools offers an inclusive curriculum and maintains a pluralistic ethos that would be immediately recognisable to any RAVSAK member. And each is significantly oversubscribed, despite increasing competition from other faith and non-faith schools, demonstrating a clear demand from parents for this type of education.

Yet, when the children have graduated from these schools, their parents have faced a stark choice: an Orthodox secondary school or a non-faith school unable to continue the educational process begun in those junior years.

Pluralist pioneers

But not for much longer. In 2001, a small group of determined parents set out to create the UK’s first inclusive Jewish secondary school. Driven in most cases by a desire to create a school with an open and inclusive ethos for their own children, it soon became clear that the scale of the project would mean that the school could not open in time for their own children to benefit from it. The group was determined that the school be a state-funded secondary school, which inevitably slowed down the process of development. Nevertheless, seven years later they have secured support from across the community, a local authority site with planning permission (far from straightforward under UK law), and more than £36 million ($60 million) in state funding. JCoSS is also well on the way to raising the £10 million target for fundraising from the community. JCoSS is set to open its doors in September 2010.

How did it happen?

Having established the vision, the JCoSS parents’ first challenge was to identify a site, an extremely challenging task. Land is scarce in the UK and especially in the two or three North London boroughs with sufficient concentrations of Jews to support such a school. Where land does become available it is usually snapped up for commercial development, making it far too expensive to purchase for educational purposes, and where—for some reason or other—it is not suitable for commercial use, there are huge demands from competing non-commercial uses.

Eventually, however, the JCoSS parents found a perfect site in the borough of Barnet. It already housed part of a school, which was in dilapidated condition. The governors (board members) of that school were keen to merge and rebuild their two buildings, freeing up the site for JCoSS, if only the money could be found to make it happen. Lobbying of the Schools Minister by JCoSS received an extremely sympathetic hearing, and a way was found to fund the two projects in tandem, subject to JCoSS’s parents being able to prove demand.

This JCoSS was able to do with relative ease. Independent market research was commissioned among parents from across the Jewish community which showed overwhelming support for the project, and this was reinforced by the increasing demand for places at the existing Jewish cross-communal primary schools. Indeed, these schools are growing to such an extent that, by the time JCoSS opens, their graduates alone will fill five of the new school’s six classes of entry. Already, three years to go, the parents of almost 180 children eligible to attend the school in its first year of opening have registered an interest in attending, enough to fill the school to capacity on day one.

Reaching out

With the demand proven, the government came up with the funding, and the community establishment came on board. Gerald Ronson, the community’s leading philanthropist and a hugely successful property developer, agreed to support the school financially from his family trust and, still more importantly, agreed to head up the design and build phase of the project. Ronson, a member of the mainstream Orthodox community, regards JCoSS as hugely important in complementing existing Orthodox provision. As he writes in the school’s brochure: “What better way to reach out to those who might otherwise be lost to Judaism than through education and through their children?”

A chair of governors (board president) has been appointed, and other governors are now being sought to provide expertise in education, marketing, recruitment, and all the other skills required to deliver a project on this scale. They will then turn their attention to finding an inspirational head teacher and start work on detailed curriculum planning.

Volunteer to help

And that’s where RAVSAK comes in. Over the coming months, we look forward to calling on the help and advice of the network to draw on the huge experience which you have to offer. JCoSS represents an important outpost of the RAVSAK approach and we thank you in advance for your support. ♦

To find out more about JCoSS and to volunteer to support the project, please visit our website at www.jcoss.org.

Books

Eisner, Eliot. The Arts and the Creation of Mind. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

Gallas, Karen. Languages of Learning: How Children Talk, Write, Draw, Dance, and Sing their Understanding of the World. New York: Teachers College Press, 1994.

Goldberg, Merryl. Integrating the Arts: An Approach to Teaching and Learning in Multicultural and Multilingual Settings (Third Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Allyn & Bacon, 2005.

Perkins, David. The Intelligent Eye: Learning to Think by Looking at Art. Los Angeles: The Getty Center for Education in the Arts, 1994.

Websites

www.meltonarts.org: ready-made lesson plans on Judaic topics using the arts

www.avodaarts.org: an organization that creates artistic programs that serve as portals for Jewish learning

www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/links/toolbox/books.html: a resource listing hundreds of books and magazines in all fields of arts education

Council of American Jewish Museums: http://www2.jewishculture.org/cultural_services/museums/cajm/directory/

American Association of Museums: http://www.aam-us.org/aboutmuseums/directory.cfm

www.gildedlions.org: text and images of the Jewish folk art traditions exhibited at the American Folk Art Museum (see the article in this issue by Kalter and Lasser)

We live in a time of epochal change, but none of us can truly know what lies ahead; we can only imagine. As parents, educators, and leaders in the Jewish community, however, we must understand the rhythm of change and always try to steer our schools wisely through seas of challenges and opportunities.

One of RAVSAK’s goals is to anticipate trends and help Jewish community day and high schools prepare for the future. All too often, we become swamped with day to day stresses and activities, and lose the ability to “see into the future.” RAVSAK aims to help us acquire that far-seeing wisdom. Our recent energizing Houston conference focused on the big issues, the big questions, and the big picture. Right now, the RAVSAK staff and Executive Committee are planning the 2009 conference in San Francisco which will take us in a new direction: for the first time, the conference will include an innovative full day of workshops for teachers and staff, where they can learn about best practices and build a network for future professional interchanges. For all schools, this is a valuable addition; for the smaller schools in our network, where there is limited funding for professional development, it is priceless.

Project SuLaM is an example of RAVSAK’s support of professional development is one of its key components. SuLaM II is in its second year, returning to New York City for the study of Jewish texts, history and liturgy. SuLaMites from both cohorts joined together at the Houston Conference for a very successful Tu B’Shvat seder. SuLaM III is already in the planning stages. Anyone interested in participating in this unique and in-depth program of professional preparation and enrichment should contact Elliott Rabin at the RAVSAK office for more information.

Another new RAVSAK program is “Re/Presenting the Jewish Past.” The Network for the Teaching of Jewish History, the AVI CHAI Foundation, and The Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development are collaborating with RAVSAK to offer this program this summer at NYU. This new initiative includes consultation and mentoring, bringing together leading scholars of Jewish history with current teachers to transform the teaching of Jewish history in schools across the spectrum of Jewish observance.

RAVSAK’s inclusion of the North American Association of Jewish High Schools under our umbrella has allowed us to cooperate in another unique venture: eleven teams of high schoolers recently competed in mock trials at a Moot Beit Din, held at the Tannenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto. Larger and better than ever, the program provided a challenging educational opportunity and lots of great socialization.

As RAVSAK grows to include our Canadian counterparts, we are also reaching out beyond North America. We look to a future that will include schools from Great Britain, Germany, Mexico, and South America within our network, enriching us in new ways and allowing us to share resources for the betterment of our Jewish future.

As I leave the Hannah Senesh Community Day School in New York and assume the headship of the Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School in the San Francisco Bay Area, it is immensely gratifying to me to know that the resources of RAVSAK are available regardless of my coastal location. While I am not yet wise enough to see the future, I know that RAVSAK will be there for me—as it is for you—to assure that the future will be full of opportunities which I can meet knowledgeably and with confidence.

I wish all of you a successful conclusion to your school year and to a well deserved vacation. ♦

For the past nine years, these are the kinds of questions I’ve posed to teachers and principals in Jewish schools around the country. As a curriculum designer, trainer of teachers, and director of Avoda Arts, my goal is to help educators infuse the arts—both productively and confidently—into their unique learning communities.

My work is informed by groundbreaking research in the general education community over the last 25 years, which has expanded our thinking about how people learn, communicate, and understand the world. These findings help explain why the arts can play a vital role in improving students’ ability to learn. We know that schools that incorporate music, art, photography, film, dance, and theatre provide a range of ways for young people to access content and express understanding of ideas.

For purposes of this article, I am defining the arts in the broadest sense to include visual arts (painting, drawing, and sculpture), media arts (photography, film, and digital imaging), performing arts (theater, dance, and puppetry), musical arts (song-leading, chorus, and orchestra), and literary arts (creative writing and poetry).

Creativity, Connection, and Community

We can readily talk about the many compelling reasons for integrating the arts into education. The arts make content more accessible, foster creative expression, encourage collaboration, engage diverse learners, and build critical thinking skills. The spirit, excitement, and energy generated when the arts thrive in our schools is palpable to any observer.

I believe that the arts are an essential component to Jewish day schools because they help strengthen kavanah (focus and intention) among students and teachers, foster charitzut (diligence) around serious art-making, and build kehillah (community) throughout the school. Simply put, the arts bring joy, fullness, nuance, and connection to the Jewish classroom. They serve as a literal gateway to more inspired, thoughtful, and committed learning.

As Jewish educators, then, it is incumbent upon us to create and nurture a learning environment where the arts are the vehicles through which students can wrestle with complex concepts, translate their beliefs about the world, and make more personal connections to learning. Toward that end, I offer a framework for thinking about arts-based teaching and learning in the Jewish day school:

Clarify the Role of the Arts. At some schools, the arts serve as a basis for both general and Jewish studies. Students build proficiency in specific artistic disciplines, but the arts are used primarily as a lens through which all other subjects can be studied. At other schools, the arts are included in the weekly roster of core subjects, and in-house art specialists work in tandem with general studies and Jewish studies instructors to fulfill curricular goals. In other instances, the arts may be viewed solely as electives outside of the basic curriculum. It is important to understand the strengths and limitations of these distinctly different approaches.

Train and Empower a Network of Educators. Teachers must be provided with tools, training, and ongoing support to infuse the arts into their daily curriculum, especially (as is typically the case in the early grades) if their classroom is the sole venue for accessing the arts. Having worked with hundreds of Jewish educators in the field, I know that many classroom teachers with little or no background in the arts are initially intimidated by the idea of bringing cameras, instruments, or sketchbooks into their classrooms. First-rate professional development that builds skills and confidence in using the arts is critical to a school’s successful implementation of arts-based strategies and methods.

Engage the Community of Jewish Artists. I’d like to see our day schools host high-caliber visiting artists on a regular basis. There are a substantial number of artists—ranging from the most seasoned to emerging talents—who are exploring the depths of Jewish life through their work, and who would benefit from meaningful opportunities to share their work with young audiences. It’s a scenario that works for everyone: students get to work side-by-side with a cadre of talented sculptors, musicians, photographers and performers; teachers acquire an interdisciplinary curriculum partner; artists gain invaluable teaching experience; and the community gets to sample an array of interesting exhibitions and performances.

Build Commitment at Multiple Levels. In order to develop and expand the role of arts in our school systems, parents and administrators must see the benefits. We can’t just advocate for the arts when we’re preparing annual budget requests. Rather, we must advocate all year long. And, we have to show, not just tell. Let principals, parents, and lay leaders experience the arts for themselves. Make them use their hands to craft a piece in conjunction with a specific theme or topic. Make them talk about the film that just moved them to tears. Help them understand that art gets us in our kishkes, and that deep, memorable learning comes from participating in such experiences.

Share Success Stories Loudly and Clearly. Throughout North America, there currently exists a small group of community day schools where authentic arts-infused learning is visible in every inch of the building. These schools are led by passionate educators and administrators who are working hard and smart to actively and systematically incorporate the arts into their core curriculum. As important as it is to recognize and celebrate these exemplars, we really need to learn from them. We need to develop, document, and institutionalize a process that will enable successive school communities to create arts integration plans that are scaled to schools’ unique interests and abilities.

Motivate and Inspire Our Teachers. Retaining our best teachers remains a daunting challenge in Jewish education. I believe that schools that embrace the arts fully are perceived as havens of creativity and innovation—places where students want to learn and teachers want to teach. As we aim to improve the educational environments in our network of day schools, I believe the arts can help us retain our top teachers.

Forging Partnerships for Success

High-caliber arts integration happens when classroom teachers work hand-in-hand with talented arts specialists, and when this interdisciplinary team is supported by partnerships with professional organizations and community programs in the arts. This type of coalition-building approach enhances student engagement, strengthens teacher commitment, and builds more meaningful, purposeful learning communities.

There are critical questions about how an arts methodology fits into the constantly evolving Jewish educational system. Challenges abound, including how best to train teachers, how to tailor programs in very diverse school settings, and how to engage communal leadership to support such a new toolkit for day schools. That is why Avoda Arts continues to work with academic and community leaders to facilitate measured integration of arts-based learning across the Jewish educational landscape. ♦

During the class, the number of verbs and nouns expands. Later, the students will have a homework assignment in which they will have to use the new verbs they learned in sentences. Additionally, they will write a detailed description of the new skills of sculpture they acquired during the class. A few days later, the students will have to submit a proposal for creating a sculpture of an oil jar based on old Greek and Etruscan jars they studied a few days earlier in the art museum. The proposals, written in Hebrew, will spell out all the steps that are needed to accomplish the design; they describe the sources of inspiration, the symbols used to decorate the jar, and the historical background of the oil jar. Instead of a formal evaluation, the students will give an oral presentation explaining their project during a schoolwide Chanukah exhibition. The teacher who runs the class is both an art teacher and a Hebrew teacher.

The Toronto Heschel School is not an art school; however, the arts permeate every aspect of the school curriculum. Teams of teachers design the lessons, and in this case the unit was designed by the integrated art supervisor, the art and Hebrew teacher, the homeroom Hebrew teacher, and the social studies teacher.

Traditionally, the arts have been absent from Jewish day school curricula, relegated to occasional visual art classes, choral music courses, or extracurricular classes after school hours. Currently, the arts are making their way back into Jewish education in day schools, informal education, camps, colleges for Jewish studies, and graduate programs in Jewish education.

Even though Jewish education is fundamentally text-based and most educators believe that making knowledgeably Jewish students requires practice and mimetic education, more and more educational institutions realize that reading is only the beginning of Jewish education. The ultimate goal of teaching Jewish texts does not end with transmission of knowledge, but requires the complex process of understanding and interpretation by the mind and transformation of the spirit. Jewish day schools want to contribute to students’ spirituality as well as make students knowledgeable and culturally literate, and most of all, make learning memorable.

To this end, more and more educational institutions include the arts in their curricula. Some teach the arts as discrete disciplines, enabling students to explore the world around them and to express their inner lives. These schools teach techniques, theory, and performance. Other schools teach the arts in conjunction with other disciplines. Teaching the arts and teaching through the arts allows teachers to vary their teaching methods and find new ways of appealing to learners.

Teaching through the arts implies that the teachers need to teach in an integrated method. There are various models of subject integration, and they are defined differently in the literature about integration. Integration of the arts into the curriculum moves on a continuum from discipline-based teaching, in which each subject is taught as a discrete discipline, to theme-based teaching, in which all the curricular subjects are focused around a central theme. Creating integrated curricula or units relies on Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences: linguistic, logical mathmatical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic; and on principles of differentiated learning based on the understanding that people learn in different ways.

Here are some examples of programs and courses at different levels that integrate the arts throughout the curricula:

• At Gann Academy, a high school in Waltham, Massachusetts, students are required to take at least eight trimesters in the arts over four years, but are free to choose which courses they take. The school has multiple arts events throughout the year and offers jazz, chamber music ensemble, visual art, dance, Israeli folk dancing and many more.
• The Columbus Jewish Day School in Columbus, Ohio, a kindergarten through fifth-grade school, seeks to combine a focus on academic excellence with a commitment to the arts. The school believes that integration of the arts—visual and language arts, music, drama, and dance—into the curriculum affords the students the possibility to use their imagination, spirit, compassion, understanding, and creativity.
• At the Prozdor High School program at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Elisheva Gould teaches a class called “Woe is Me: Difficult Experiences Within Jewish Art and Text,” which integrates text study, art making, and visits to the Jewish Museum. The teacher and the students examine expressions of suffering that run throughout Jewish art and biblical and rabbinic texts. They analyze painting, photography, film, and other artistic media, they create art, and they study related biblical and talmudic sources.
• In introductory Bible courses, students at the Jewish Theological Seminary’s undergraduate List College are introduced to visual art midrashim. They study works of art during class, and they investigate biblically inspired paintings and sculptures during a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They learn how to “read” visual images as valid, multifaceted interpretations of text.
• The William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education offers a course titled “Arts as Exegesis in Jewish Education,” in which students learn the theory and practice of using the arts as a powerful tool for motivating students to apply their knowledge, work cooperatively, and make connections across content areas. The students explore how the arts can be used as a basis for learning and teaching the content areas of Jewish education to people of all ages in a variety of educational settings. They read texts and discuss them in a traditional way, but their awareness is enhanced and they become more fully engaged as they recreate them visually. The art helps fill in the gaps in the biblical narrative, imagination is engaged, and the students can better identify with the characters and create personal artistic interpretations. By interacting with the content, the students make the Bible more vivid and relevant.

Another initiative to promote the role of the arts in Jewish education is the MeltonArts website, dedicated to teaching Judaism through the arts. The website is a project of the Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction, which was created by Samuel Melton in 1993 just before he passed away. MeltonArts.org’s goal is to emphasize the role of the arts in Jewish and Israeli education and to demonstrate that educators can integrate the arts with all areas of Judaic studies, including Jewish text study, Jewish history and civilization, Israel, and Jewish holidays. The website supplies Jewish educators of all affiliations and in all settings with resources to develop their own awareness of the arts, and provides tools that will help them utilize the arts to further the teaching and learning of Judaic studies and the enhancing of Jewish identity.

In his book Back to the Sources, Barry Holtz posits that the “Torah remains unendingly alive because the readers of each subsequent generation saw it as such, taking the holiness of the Torah seriously, and adding their own contribution to the story.” Given the opportunity to interpret the text by creating their own artistic midrashim, students fulfill the most essential mitzvah of Judaism, becoming links in the long chain of those engaged in the interpretation and the teaching of Torah. ♦

As Jewish culture has evolved, however, the arts have increasingly come into play as vital expressions of Jewish thought and spirituality. In our schools also, there has been a renaissance of creative Jewish exploration of the visual and performing arts, as well as new media, as a means of increasing students’ understanding of the roots of our faith and the many ways in which this faith can be expressed.

This issue of HaYidion will allow you to explore these new avenues of learning for your students. The collection of articles is broad and far-ranging and will provide you with some fascinating glimpses into the talents and creativity of the programming in our RAVSAK schools. Whether you are seeking to initiate or deepen your current arts curricula, or whether you are looking for innovative and stimulating new directions to take, this issue offers background, concrete examples, and guidance and support.

The holiday of Shavuot celebrates the harvest of the first fruits, which were cut and placed in baskets woven of gold and silver, laden onto oxcarts decorated with flowers and led in a grand procession to Jerusalem, accompanied by music. This arts issue likewise celebrates joyously the work of our children’s hands and the harvest of the creativity of the farmers of our people’s future: the teachers in our Jewish community day schools. We are sure you will find it fruitful and enjoyable reading. ♦