Jewish Reconstructionist Federation

The Education Department provides resources and support for congregational education directors, religious school teachers, parents, adult education teachers and independent learners.

• Reconstructionist Educators of North America
  RENA is the professional association of Reconstructionist education directors.

Rabbi Erin Hirsh
JRF Director of Education
ehirsh@jrf.org

JRF has launched a central web portal that offers easy access to its curriculum-oriented educational materials.

The Reconstructionist Curriculum Resource Finder is an interactive, online tool serving Reconstructionist teachers, parents, and education directors. It provides a menu of suggested textbooks, story books and background material, linking directly to the publishers, on over 20 of the major topics taught in Reconstructionist congregational schools. Topics are searchable by age level, author, title and sub-categories.

The Reconstructionist Curriculum Resource Finder made its debut this week at the CAJE 33 Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education at the University of Vermont.

Rabbi Erin Hirsh: JRF Director of EducationNearly 60 educators came together at Or Hadash in Fort Washington, PA for the Mid-Atlantic Educator’s Day.

[Watch Erin's charge to the education directors.]

They came from nine congregations ranging from Mechanicsburg, PA to Newark DE to Princeton, NJ. The topic was “Educating Reconstructionistly.” The keynote speaker was Rabbi Jacob Staub, author of Exploring Judaism.

He spoke about the Reconstructionist concept that tradition has a vote and not a veto. Teachers and education directors then broke into a series of workshops to explore their own engagement with tradition and how they can and do transmit it to our students.

On February 3rd, 2008, 60 educators gathered at Congregation Or Hadash in Fort Washington, PA. Here is a 2 minute video of Erin Hirsh giving a charge to the educators.

Educators at November, 2007 RENA ConferenceSome say I just was looking to see some beautiful fall foliage. Others know that I have a soft spot in my heart for carved wood synagogue sanctuaries. Yet others might suppose that as a shul-hopper, I decided to take a few days to check out Congregation Or Hadash in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. In fact, I went to Fort Washington on a mission: to learn from and connect with other education directors of Reconstructionist Congregations.

The theme of the RENA conference was “Experiential Learning” with a focus on how to incorporate the style of programming from Camp JRF into our schools and congregational education models.

Reconstructionist Education Directors
It's time for our RENA retreat!

Register now! [Note: on the registration form you do NOT need a "Sporg user profile" to register.]

Where: Congregation Or Hadash outside Philadelphia

When: Sunday night through Tuesday afternoon, November 11-13, 2007

Why: To give Reconstructionist Education Directors a chance to share ideas, interact with each other, and learn about infusing informal and formal education into our religious schools.

Reconstructionist CAJE ParticipantsReconstructionist Educators from (clockwise from lower left) Illinois, Florida, New Jersey, Colorado, Philadelphia, Maryland, Ohio and Georgia join together at the Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education in St. Louis to discuss what's new in Reconstructionist Education. They were among nearly forty Reconstructionist educators who attended the August conference.

Dalia Rosenthal (left) and Dina Bartnov (right)Two Reconstructionist Educators were among the winners of the fifth annual Grinspoon-Steinhardt Awards for Excellence in Jewish Education.

The winners were Dina Bartov, a teacher at Beth Evergreen, in Evergreen, Colorado, who is supervised by Education Director, Jill Wildenberg, and Dalia Rosenthal, Education Director of Kehillath Shalom in Cold Spring Harbor, New York.

Original version of the guide, by Dr. Jeffrey Schein and Leah MundelThe Reconstructionist Web-based Curriculum Project is set to be launched in late spring of 2007 and is intended to help the more than 100 Reconstructionist congregations (and interested progressive Jewish congregations) that are in need of curricula resources. The curriculum project is an online interactive resource that will provide a menu of options for teachers, parents, and education directors.

Rabbi Erin HirshWe are pleased to welcome Rabbi Erin Hirsh as JRF’s new Education Coordinator.

Since entering the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College as a student twelve years ago, Erin has focused her work on Reconstructionist education. She has taught at several religious schools and served as Education Director at two of them. She has served as the Education Director at Congregation Mishkan Shalom for the past seven years and will continue in that role on a part-time basis.

Erin has worked for JRF in various capacities since 1994; serving as the Mid-Atlantic Regional Education Liaison for two years and subsequently as a grant and educational curriculum writer for three years. We welcome her return to JRF!