jerusalem | The nursery school teachers from New York sit on the very same rugged, Herodian-era stone stairs that were used centuries ago by Jewish pilgrims leaving the biblical temple.
For many of these teachers, it’s their first trip to Israel and an experience they’ll surely bring back to their classrooms, where Jewish preschoolers often get their first taste of what it means to be a Jew.
“I feel very fortunate,” says Enid Roth, as she walks through Jerusalem’s Old City. “Even though I’ve been a nursery school teacher for almost 20 years, I was not a person so versed in Jewish history and aspects of Judaism … I think I can now make it come more alive for them,” she says of the 3- and 4-year-olds she teaches in Long Island.
The group of some 120 early-childhood teachers from Jewish schools in the Greater New York area is on a 10-day trip designed to enhance their connection to the Jewish state and the Jewish people. The experience is expected to help them strengthen the Jewish identities of their students and their students’ families.
The trip is part of an ongoing educational program called Project ENGAJE, which stands for Enrich, Nurture and Grow through Adult Jewish Education. The program includes 250 teachers from 11 schools who have been meeting weekly throughout the past year to study Jewish texts, holidays and history.
The program is a two-year project made possible by a grant of more than $1 million, and is sponsored by the UJA Federation of New York, in partnership with the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York and the Suffolk Association of Jewish Educational Services.
The program’s second year, beginning this fall, will focus on incorporating the teachers’ experiences in Israel and Jewish education into their classrooms.
“Early-childhood education is finally being recognized for the importance it holds as a gateway for the Jewish family. It’s the first time the family has a chance to focus on the meaning of Judaism,” says Cheryl Meskin, director of the educational board’s early-childhood education division.
During their stay in Israel, the teachers will tour the country and meet colleagues who also teach early education. Among those colleagues is Rachel Gurevitz, a rabbinical student from Hebrew Union College who taught adult-education classes to the wandering group of teachers this past year. The instructors she met with were interested in studying different topics, she said, ranging from the Jewish lifecycle to the history of modern Zionism.
She noted that, like many American Jews, the teachers had a limited knowledge of Jewish education. “There are too many Jews walking around with a 13-year-old’s understanding of what Judaism is. A lot of adults have not had a chance to learn,” she said.
Cheryl Karp is director of a Jewish Center, where she oversees a staff of teachers from the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist streams.
Weekly study sessions with her staff of 28 have made them appreciate each other more as teachers and as Jews. She says she has been taken aback by the thirst for knowledge.
“They want more. They don’t want to leave,” she said of the classes.
Being in Israel has been a deeply moving experience for Karp and the eight teachers from her staff who have joined her on the trip.
“We keep pinching ourselves that we’re really here,” she said, noting that they were especially moved to observe Shabbat in Jerusalem and to see how the whole city prepares and then rests in unison. Their Shabbat included visits to synagogues across the city, Israeli folk dancing and making Havdalah at the Western Wall.
Isabel Schein, a consultant to several Manhattan Jewish preschools and a participant of the trip, spoke of the connection to Israel as being an important component of Jewish education.
“You have to come here, you have to feel it, if you want to pass it on to the kids,” she said.
“Transmitting these feelings will be essential in preserving the connection of the diaspora community to Israel,’ she added, noting that when educators teach young children, that education also reaches the parents.