Local Jewish day schools continuing to integrate Israel education through iNfuse
September 8th, 2015
Three local Jewish day schools have started the second year of an initiative that aims to improve Israel experiences and education in Jewish day schools.
Last year, the iCenter, a national Israel education organization, launched “iNfuse: Israel Education in Day Schools,” at six day schools from across North America. The local schools are Donna Klein Jewish Academy in Boca Raton and Jacobson Sinai Academy and Hochberg Preparatory School, both in North Miami Beach. The purpose of this initiative has been for each school to create a plan to make Israel education and experiences a more significant part of all aspects of school life.
The IDF visited Jacobson Sinai Academy, one of the local schools that was selected for “iNfuse: Israel Education in Day Schools.” (Submitted photo)
Lesley Litman, one of the initiative’s designers and iCenter educational consultant, said that all the schools are moving forward. She noted that there are three phases to the program.
“Our plan was that in the first year, the schools would do the first two phases and in the second year they would do the third phase, which is designing and implementing curriculum projects,” Litman said. “The schools are all more or less on track, which is really pretty remarkable because they each went through the first year, through phases 1 and 2, in their own unique ways. We provided them with tools and they navigated it in a way that was unique to them.”
Litman also said “We have a set of online tools for every phase that will enable the schools to actually design curricula online and access resources for teachers and students from the iCenter and other Israel education sources. In turn, they will be able to implement the curriculum that they’re designing as a result of their work with iNfuse.”
In the first year of the program, Donna Klein Jewish Academy created a survey monkey.
“The survey included questions that required a little bit of looking at the curriculum and finding out in each discipline where there is or where there is not any relation to Israel education,” said Sammy Chukran-Lontok, the school’s director of Middle School Judaic Studies and director of Middle and High School Hebrew Studies. “We took this information and we summarized it and with that we came out up with our standards, mission statement, core assumption and vision.”
Jacobson Sinai Academy developed a mission statement as part of iNfuse that states, “The relationship of our learners with Am Yisrael, Eretz Yisrael and Medinat Yisrael is a priority for the JSA community. JSA promotes knowledge and appreciation of Israel through academic studies and cultural experiences. This learning enhances students’ connection to and knowledge of Israel and strengthens their Jewish identity.”
Laura Pachter, a co-chair for inFuse at JSA, said “I think everyone embraced the idea of focusing more on Israel’s geography, history, innovation and diversity and we’ve been addressing the Jewish connection all along.”
Pachter also mentioned that through this program, everyone in the school is starting to make their own connections in their subject areas.
Dayna Wald, principal of Judaics at Hochberg Preparatory School, said that over the summer, the school worked on connecting the standards it identified in the program’s first year to things it was already doing and developed connections between its existing curriculum and its newly identified Israel education standards.
“I met with our curriculum director to review the standards and identify areas for cross-curricular collaboration,” Wald added. “Our next step is to identify areas of focus for the first half of the year and provide our teachers with resources to make these connections in the classrooms with their students.”
Wald added “We are focusing first on the standard of People, Nation, State and Land of Israel. Teachers are working on aligning their current curriculum to this theme and identifying areas for integration.”