Middle School Israel Education
Israel education in the Middle School blends the affective and emotional with an increased nuance and context as students are introduced to the complexity of Israel. The program is built upon six enduring understandings, all geared toward promoting and enhancing Ahavat Yisrael/love of Israel, the Jewish People, and the Hebrew Language:
- Our connection to Israel spans the course of time.
- As Jews, we maintain a strong personal and ongoing relationship with Israel, its people, history, and culture.
- Relationships are rewarding, beautiful, nuanced, and complex.
- Our relationship with and to Israel is multifaceted, with each individual developing their own way to articulate and demonstrate our connection to Israel.
- Eretz Yisrael, Medinat Yisrael, Am Yisrael are three lenses through which we examine our relationship with Israel.
- Dialoguing about Israel must be done responsibly, ethically, compassionately, with awareness and sensitivity to individuals’ and communities’ varied relationships with Israel.
Middle School students engage in learning about Israel through a blend of experiential programs and classroom-based learning in both secular, Hebrew, and Jewish Text classes. Students explore the foundations of Israel's role in Jewish peoplehood and Jewish identity past, present, and future. Students study how individual Jews and Jewish communities throughout the world express their connections to the land of Israel, its people, history, and culture.
As students begin their transition to Jewish adulthood, they work to identify their own personal connection to Israel and ways that they personally wish to demonstrate, develop, and maintain an ongoing bond with Israel. At the same time, they engage with the complexity of Israel and learn to dialogue with others about Israel when relationships to Israel and perspectives about Israel differ.
Through their Hebrew language studies, students develop a relationship with Israeli institutions, continuing the partnership with the Keshet Schools begun in the Lower School and partnering, as well, with other institutions including ANU: The Museum of the Jewish People. Students engage with authentic Hebrew texts as they learn about themselves and about Israel while studying Hebrew language and building their proficiency.
Israel is celebrated throughout the year as part of our Z’man Kodesh program, through our weekly Kabbalat Shabbat programs, and in school wide celebrations and commemorations marking important days on the calendar, including Tu Bishvat (the New Year for the Trees), Yom Ha-Zikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day), Yom Ha-atzma-ut (Israel’s Independence Day), and Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day). We also mark important contemporary events as they happen - holding our own mock Israeli elections, celebrating the launch of Israel’s first rocket into space, bringing in speakers, creating assemblies, and more!
