Engaging Israel –
Deepening the Encounter
for Our First-Year Students
T
he last word of the Torah is
Yisrael
.
The first word
is
B’reisheet
.
When we complete our public read-
ing of our People’s central text, we immediately begin
again. On Simchat Torah, the last word and the first
word are joined –
Yisrael b’reisheet
(“
Israel first” or even
“
In the beginning: Israel”). Wearing my Director of the
Year-In-Israel program
kippah
,
I must say I very much
like this subtle teaching of
Simchat Torah
!
All of our rabbinical, cantorial, and Jewish educa-
tion students begin their HUC-JIR training in Israel on
our Jerusalem campus. Here they learn Hebrew, study
Bible and Rabbinics, absorb the history of the Biblical
and Second Temple periods in the place it happened,
and, perhaps most powerfully, explore their relation-
ships with the land, state, and people of Israel.
Israel studies forms a significant part of the
formal curriculum of the Year-In-Israel program.
Wednesdays throughout the year are reserved for our
Israel Seminar. Tuesday afternoons provide the context
as we study the history of the Zionist movement, the
Arab-Israeli conflict, and contemporary world Jewry.
This coming year, in partnership with the Mandel
Foundation, our Israel studies program will include two
study trips –
tiyulim
–
focused on the themes of Israel
and Jewish Peoplehood. Monthly inquiry groups inte-
grated into our Israel Seminar (and also developed in
partnership with and partially funded by the Mandel
Foundation) give students the opportunity to reflect
deeply and regularly on essential questions that
should inform a mature, thoughtful relationship with
Israel. Our mid-year colloquium – an intensive three
days of inquiry and exploration led by HUC-JIR faculty
and guest lecturers – gives students the opportunity to
connect Israel as a theme with God and Torah, the two
other pillars of Jewish thought.
Our informal curriculum includes our
T’ruma
projects, which enable students to contribute by
volunteering at organizations in Jerusalem and its
environs; our Parallel Lives Program, which connects
HUC-JIR students with a group of IDF soldiers for a se-
ries of conversations about Israel, Judaism, and Jewish
Peoplehood; and dozens of other extra-curricular op-
portunities that expose our students to a diverse range
of viewpoints about Israel, Jewish life, the role of the
Jewish professional, Israel-Diaspora relations, and our
obligations to the non-Jewish “other” in our midst.
Perhaps the simplest and most powerful way the
College-Institute encourages Israel engagement is in
its requirement that all of our future rabbis, cantors,
and Jewish educators spend a year living and learning
in Israel. Over the course of this year – through cur-
riculum both formal and informal, planned and
unplanned – our students engage with the State of
Israel and its inhabitants in sustained and, we hope,
deep ways. Whether inside the classroom or in conver-
sations with taxi-drivers or neighbors, our students
explore their commitment to Israel as a place and as
a People.
The last letter of the last word of Torah is
lamed
.
The first letter of the first word is
bet. Lamed-bet
spells
“
lev,” which means heart. While much of the Year-In-
Israel program is designed to stimulate the mind, we
understand that our curriculum must touch the heart
as well. We are not just an academy of higher learning.
We are also a seminary that endeavors to inspire in its
graduates a deep, enduring, and mature love for Israel.
This is why this program is as intense as it is and it’s
why the program needs to happen here, in Israel. A
lasting, significant, meaningful love requires patience,
time for reflection as well as play, and lots of hard
work. Our students’ Year-In-Israel is the beginning –
we hope – of a lifelong love affair with our homeland,
our Torah, our People, and our God.
W
ho will be Israel’s future educational leaders and
how can educational leadership be developed?
What are the characteristics of the process that can sup-
port the growth of visionary educational leadership?
In Israel, pluralism is not well understood as an educa-
tional approach, although the term is being increasingly
employed in a variety of settings and by a range of different
institutions. We have become convinced that if we wish to
promote pluralism it is not enough to be engaged in advo-
cacy. We need to get involved in the educational system and
offer a way of nurturing a new generation of educational
leadership.
The Advanced Program for Pluralistic Jewish Educa-
tion is our joint venture with the Melton Centre for
Education of the Hebrew University, which grants the M.A.
degree in Jewish Education. The aim of the program is to
train leading educators to deal with the challenges of Plural-
istic Jewish Education in Israel. It combines academic
studies with experiential and reflective group learning.
Currently, two cohorts of the program have completed their 2-year studies (with a
total of 22 students), and the third cohort is expected to start this academic year.
The first principle of the program is to acquire
acquaintance with current thought
and issues in Jewish education
.
In order to formulate clear goals, for themselves and
for others, educational leaders need to be knowledgeable regarding Jewish educational
thinking in all its diversity. Therefore, a major portion of the program is aimed at gaining
familiarity with contemporary issues in Jewish education, including peoplehood, Jew-
ish identity, and curriculum planning.
One central component of the program is the concept of
pluralism. We work with our students on the theoretical un-
derpinnings of this concept, and they have an opportunity to
study with leading researchers and teachers in Jewish educa-
tion. Acquiring and expanding one’s acquaintance with the
Jewish educational world is expected to enable educational
leaders to design vision and to cope with the challenges of a
complex and rapidly changing Jewish world. The program
provides a theoretical and practical basis for the educational
study of the concept of pluralism, through study with leading
researchers in the field of Jewish education.
The second principle of the program is to encourage the students to frame their
own
educational vision
.
One of the central expectations of educational leadership is
the ability to see the connection between one’s values and goals and the actions nec-
essary in order to accomplish these goals. This includes examination of alternatives
From Theory into Practice:
The Advanced M.A.
Program for Pluralistic Jewish Education
Dr. Michal Muszkat-Barkan,
Director, Department of Education and Professional Development, HUC-JIR/Jerusalem
The Chronicle
Fall 2011
Page 13
(
continued on next page 29)
Rabbi Josh Zweiback, RHSOE ’96, N ’98;
Director, Year-In-Israel Program, HUC-JIR/Jerusalem
The students are
invited to read,
raise questions,
and investigate
the environments
in which they
themselves are
situated.
Rabbi Josh Zweiback teaching Year-In-Israel
students at HUC-JIR/Jerusalem
Dr. Michal
Muszkat-Barkan
