Israel is a vital element of our Jewish identity. How do we as North American Jews connect ourselves, our congregants, and our students authentically with an Israel that can sometimes feel far away—especially for those who have never visited?
In her thoughtful piece last week in eJewishPhilanthropy, Hope Chernak of Temple Shaaray Tefila in New York City identified using modern Israeli music, building relationships with Israelis, and sharing our individual Jewish journeys and connections to Israel as three key elements educators and clergy can employ to increase communal engagement with Israel.
Educational Consultant Lesley Litman expanded on Hope’s ideas, not only urging us to consider all the arts—music, plus TV shows, film, visual arts, and more—to build cultural connections, but also pointing out the sustained effort needed to create the opportunities that lead to the development of authentic relationships. To be successful we need to understand the extensive scope of the endeavor.
One area of particular challenge, according to Lesley, is the ambivalence many feel about Israel and its role in their personal Jewish journeys. Left unaddressed, such ambivalence can stand in the way.
Are we ambivalent about Israel? And if we are ambivalent, what can we do in our congregations, in our schools, and for ourselves to address that?
One step toward addressing ambivalence is to use resources that train a spotlight on Israel in a non-political, non-polemical way. This is the mission of ISRAEL21c, an online news magazine that seeks to focus public attention on Israel’s diversity, humanity, creativity, and innovative spirit through articles and videos developed by professional journalists.
This is a fundamentally different way to discover modern Israel: What is Israel, as a country, doing in today’s world? What is its role in preserving the environment? What exciting new technologies are emerging there? What kinds of solutions are Israelis crafting to address today’s challenges? What’s going on in the cultural life of modern Israelis?
Behrman House has teamed up with ISRAEL21c to adapt a broad selection of these materials for use in Jewish religious schools as a series of downloadable lesson plans for grades 4-7 called The ISRAEL21c Teacher's Edition. Each of the downloadable lesson plans from the ISRAEL21c Teacher's Edition showcases a selection from ISRAEL21c’s extensive library of articles and videos that take visitors beyond the Middle East conflict and provides them with a window into daily life in modern Israel. It is organized around seven themes: environment, social action, people, health, culture, technology, and travel.
Every two weeks during the coming school year Behrman House will bring you a new series of seven articles/videos and their accompanying lesson plans (one for each theme), available as Featured Resources in the Behrman House Resource Libraries. The first seven installments of the ISRAEL21c Teacher's Edition are now available in the Behrman House Resource Libraries, and ultimately 120 lessons will be developed. Each can be purchased separately, or in the bi-weekly installments of seven lessons.
Another way to address ambivalence about Israel is to take a clear-eyed look at some of the political and historical issues of the modern state in an accurate, complete, and non-partisan way. Mitchell Bard’s Israel Matters offers just such a resource, providing the facts your students and congregants can use to sort out the complex questions about Israel and in doing so, discover just what the modern state means to them.
According to the Association of Jewish Libraries, "In contrast to the error-filled and often-biased books about the region issued by trade book publishers, Israel Matters is factually accurate and explains the Israeli position fairly. (Mitchell) Bard is a defender of the Jewish state, but those who might expect an unabashed polemic for Israel should know that he passed up many opportunities to include facts that would cast Israel’s enemies in a negative light." —Association of Jewish Libraries Reviews Nov./Dec. 2012 (page 9). Appropriate for grades 8-12, Israel Matters is also ideal for adult learning groups.
You can find out more about Israel Matters, including reviews, here.
You can find out more about the ISRAEL21cTeacher's Edition here.
