Improving education about Israel

Hot on the heels of a report showing major gaps in American-Jewish college students’ knowledge about the State of Israel, some 250 Jewish educators, funders and other stakeholders gathered in Las Vegas for a three-day conference on Israel education.

Hosted by the iCenter for Israel Education, the iCamp 2015 conference took place Dec. 1-3 and focused on new strategies for teaching students and campers about a range of issues, from Israeli culture to history to politics.

One local attendee, Evan Taksar, assistant director of Camp Alonim in Simi Valley, said the experience was invaluable: “I learned that there are a lot of new and exciting things going on in the field of Israel education. There was a great energy I got from being there, surrounded by more than 200 people who are deeply invested in this work.”

The conference came a week after Brandeis University’s Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies released a study showing that more than half of the 628 Birthright Israel applicants who took a multiple-choice exam designed to assess Israel literacy had scores of 50 percent or lower. It noted that students are incapable of “contributing to discourse about Israel on campus in a meaningful way.”

Merrill Alpert, director of youth activities for the Far West region of United Synagogue Youth, said that the recent conference was therapeutic and gave her a chance to vent her issues about Israel education with her peers.

“The frustration was that there is always a lack of time. The religious school educators get less and less time in the classroom to teach Hebrew school, [not to mention] about Israel,” she said. “Even though Israel education is relevant and important, it’s not as important as English, math or science education. In order to teach these issues properly, we all need more time.”

Because Israel has its own problems and, from afar, often seems like an intimidating place, Alpert said she has to balance discussing the violence and social concerns with being positive about the Jewish state.

“During the Second Intifada, we felt like all we were talking about was the conflict, and what that did was scare parents away from letting their kids go to Israel,” she said. “We’re caught in a major perplexing situation on how to deal with touching upon these issues. We [need to] look at education from all perspectives and make sure we’re not just focusing on the conflicts.”

Highlights of iCamp included a live version of “Israel Story,”an Israeli program based on the radio show “This American Life,” and an introduction to the second edition of the Aleph-Bet of Israel Education, a resource the iCenter puts out that is full of articles and essays on how best to teach students about Israel.

Some of the featured speakers were Zohar Raviv, Taglit-Birthright Israel international vice president of education; Sivan Zakai, director of Israel education initiatives at American Jewish University, and Barry Chazan, founding director of the Master of Arts in Jewish Professional Studies program at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago.

Chazan’s session struck a chord with Yifat Mukades, who teaches fourth grade at Adat Ari El in Valley Village and is an iCenter fellow. She said Chazan spoke about creating a spark within the students to make them more curious about Israel.

“They should want to ask for more knowledge and education. Once they’re engaged with it, that’s the only way they will continue their search for knowledge after elementary and even high school,” Mukades said.

At Camp Alonim, Taksar said, she attempts to cultivate curiosity within her campers, who are in grades 3 to 11, by looking at their individual interests. There is a radio station on the campus that she will use to introduce her kids to “Israel Story,” and within the dance program, she’ll incorporate Israeli music.

“For us, it’s about finding ways to make Israel relevant and modern,” she said.

Mukades, who is from Israel, tells students about her personal experiences as a citizen of the country because, she said, they tend to perceive Israel primarily as a biblical place, not one that exists in the modern world.

At the conference, she learned there are many different topics she should be integrating into her classroom to fulfill her goals. “There is no one Israel,” she said. “It has many faces and stories. If you’re an Israeli educator, you have to know all of those and share them with your students.”

Now that she has attended iCamp, Mukades said she is more motivated than ever to share insights about Israel and give her students a taste of what it’s really like.

“I want to come up with new and innovative ideas on how to educate about Israel,” she said. “And I don’t need to wait for a lot of money or research to do so.”

JTA contributed to this report. 

Source: “Improving education about Israel,” Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, December 9, 2015