The Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies has launched a new Tefilah Education Initiative. The Initiative, funded by a grant from the AVI CHAI Foundation, will provide support and direction to day schools and other Jewish educational institutions in the area of tefilah through the Pardes Tefilah Education Initiative.

“Tefilah has been one of the greatest challenges facing day schools,” noted Pardes President Rabbi Leon Morris. “Over the past decade, through its Center for Jewish Educators, Pardes has been on the forefront of creating a field of tefilah education and training professionals who can make the necessary changes in various educational settings. We are excited to continue to shape and advance this important work.”

The Pardes Tefilah Education Initiative will address three core areas: training personnel; developing guidelines for schools that want to make changes to their tefilah education program; and providing schools with the tools and resources for doing so.

“In its commitment to religious purposefulness at day schools, The AVI CHAI Foundation sees great promise in addressing tefilah education,” says Yossi Prager, Executive Director – North America of The AVI CHAI Foundation. “Having partnered with Pardes for close to two decades on teacher training, and over the past few years on tefilah education, we are eager for Pardes’s work to benefit day schools and other educational institutions.”

As part of this initiative, Pardes will develop an online resource bank and guidelines for tefilah education that will be available for free to all Jewish educational institutions by fall 2018.

Pardes will partner with schools from two communities in North America that want to start the process of addressing tefilah during the 2018-19 school year. Pardes will also sponsor a tefilah conference in the summer of 2019 for day school administrators and key personnel.

Communities interested in partnering with Pardes should contact Sefi Kraut at sefik@pardes.org.il. For further information about the Pardes Tefilah Education Initiative, contact Aviva Golbert at avivag@pardes.org.il.