• Home
  • About
    • About
    • Policies
  • Submissions
    • Op-eds
    • News / Announcements
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

eJewish Philanthropy

Your Jewish Philanthropy Resource

  • News Bits
  • Jewish Education
  • Readers Forum
  • Research
  • Show Search
Hide Search
You are here: Home / Readers Forum / The Venue for Teaching Hebrew that’s Hiding in Plain View

The Venue for Teaching Hebrew that’s Hiding in Plain View

September 13, 2019 By eJP

A Skokie public high school Hebrew class just before leaving for Israel in 2017. The group traveled on an exchange trip to Israel, the only public school in the country engaged in a sustained exchange program.

By Jay Tcath

Arnee Winshall’s response (“Hebrew Language as a Communal Priority: Achshav,” eJP, September 8, 2019) to Aviya Kushner’ “Why No One’s Studying Hebrew Anymore” (Forward, July 19, 2019) in turn merits its own response.

Like Winshall’s to Kushner’s, this one is also of the “amen, but don’t forget about….” variety.

Decrying the decline in college students and others taking Hebrew classes, Winshall appropriately focuses on two challenges:

  1. The training and excellence of Hebrew teachers. No one should question the urgent need for increased investments to recruit and retain the highest quality teachers or the need to equip them with the best curriculum and other tools to excel.
  1. Securing sufficient classroom (or even online) time to learn a challenging foreign language. The typical venues – summer camps, synagogues, after school programs and even day schools – are not designed to provide the sustained, necessary time for instruction.

Yet there is another, untapped, often overlooked venue to provide Hebrew instruction: public schools.

The “good news” is that there are already some 1,500 public high school students taking Hebrew nationally. The bad news is 1,500 is woefully low and that 40% of that number are concentrated in nine Chicago area schools.

This high school Hebrew enrollment challenge is a function of several factors: few non-Jewish students enroll; most freshmen have already invested three years (grades 6-8) studying another foreign language and are disinclined to “throw those years away” and start anew with another language, and; the belief that sticking with the other languages (mostly Spanish, French and Chinese) will be of greater utility in the students’ lives and careers.

Even high schools offering Hebrew confront chronic enrollment problems. Ten years ago the school board in the suburban Chicago town of Deerfield allowed an extraordinary one-time policy exception permitting committed parents to contribute financially to keep their under-subscribed Hebrew classes open.

With only 50 students across grades 9-12 in 2009, that Hebrew program was literally running on fumes.

Today, via an energetic new teacher, some marketing, collaborations with rabbis, youth groups and summer camps and communal and parental encouragement, the Deerfield program is now staffed by two teachers instructing (and inspiring) 180 students.

While that turnaround may seem like a unicorn, there are several environmental factors across the country working in favor of increasing Hebrew enrollment in the public high schools: 1) the population density of many Jewish communities; 2) that about 90% of Jews attend public schools; 3) the general responsiveness of local school boards to parents and especially motivated groups of parents; 4) the presumed readiness of other Jewish institutions to assist, and; 5) that only modest philanthropic investments are required.

More pointedly, there is one sure-fire way to quickly, exponentially catapult those high school Hebrew enrollment numbers: offering Hebrew in the middle schools that feed into those high schools.

Offering Hebrew as a middle school option just as Jewish students begin more intensely preparing for their bar and bat mitzvah is a natural synchronization, one that can be leveraged for maximum enrollment and educational impact.

This new academic year brings even more exciting news about Hebrew in Deerfield: it is now being offered in the two middle schools that feed into their high school. That strong Hebrew program now has a “farm league” that will matriculate many more, and better prepared Hebrew learners into an already booming program. Today’s 180 Hebrew learners is posed to grow even faster.

There is no secret sauce to starting and growing a public middle or high school Hebrew program. If any of the 5 environmental ingredients listed above are present, then simply add a pedagogically trained Hebrew teacher, and the rest is as easy as Aleph Bet.

Philanthropic support allows special supplemental educational opportunities for the Hebrew learners: A special Hebrew track on community teen trips, subsidies to attend concerts by Israeli performers, peer interactions – in person and via videoconference – with Israeli counterparts, sessions with visiting Israeli VIPs, and many, many more possibilities.

In the Chicago area, much of the enrollment progress and those supplemental opportunities are being supported by a Federation initiative called “SAFA: The Foundation for Promotion of Hebrew Language and Israel Culture in Public Schools.”

SAFA, the Hebrew word for “language,” was launched in 2015 as the country’s first foundation promoting the study of Hebrew and Israeli culture in the public schools. By bringing together organizations, teachers, rabbis, youth group professionals, students, and parents involved in existing Hebrew programs, advocating for expanding Hebrew to more high school and middle schools, and marshalling financial resources to support these efforts, SAFA has already achieved much. This year’s introduction of Hebrew into Deerfield’s middle schools is a signature achievement with more to come.

What has happened in the Chicago area is magical, but not of the voodoo, sorcery variety.

When baseball’s Wee Willie Keeler was asked his secret to batting success, he simply answered, “hit ‘em where they ain’t.”

Well, when it comes to significantly increasing Hebrew learners, the “secret” is to go to where the students are: public schools.

Jay Tcath is Executive Vice President of the the Jewish United Fund of Chicago.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Readers Forum Tagged With: Hebrew education

Click here to Email This Post Email This Post to friends or colleagues!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Valerie Khaytina says

    September 13, 2019 at 2:47 pm

    At Hebrew Public, the national organization leading the Hebrew charter school movement, we echo many points in Jay’s article. We have 10 Hebrew charter school campuses and 3,000+ students in our network today. Our schools are in NYC, NJ, Pennsylvania, Washington, DC, Minnesota and California. All students learn Hebrew since day 1 in school, through the proficiency approach model (meaning that the emphasis is on developing a student’s ability to use the language in day to day settings).

    Among the biggest challenges we have is finding and training excellent Hebrew teachers. Our teachers participate in Dr. Vardit Ringvald’s Master’s program at the Middlebury School of Hebrew, they also benefit from in-house training we provide. Growing the field of Hebrew educators and leaders is key in providing quality education to a growing number of students learning the language in a public school setting. The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life has been a leader in supporting Modern Hebrew language education and teacher training.

    Our schools serves students in pre-K through 8th grade. Before they leave our schools, students are eligible to participate in a Capstone Trip to Israel. After studying to speak Hebrew and all about Israel for 9 years, the trip is bringing to life everything that the students have learned in the classroom. For many, it’s their first airplane trip, their first travel outside of their neighborhood, or outside of the U.S.

    This past June we graduated our second cohort of alumni in NYC and NJ schools. We have a growing alumni program, where we get our students together for social encounters and for Israel experiences. We are about to pilot an online Hebrew program so that they can keep up with their language skills.

    We dream of opening a high school one day too, and wish our colleagues in Chicago a continued success, kol hakavod on your accomplishments!

  2. Rabbi Hannah Wallick says

    September 13, 2019 at 4:10 pm

    Milwaukee has a wonderful long-standing Hebrew program at our public high school, Nicolet, and started a teen exchange program last year in partnership with the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. The project was a great success and our teens will visit the teens who we hosted last year.

  3. Lisette Zaid says

    September 13, 2019 at 7:48 pm

    Brilliant! I remember feeling just this way when I was in high school. I was just SO invested in Spanish by the time I reached public high school. I would have loved to have the choice to learn Hebrew, in a public school setting, earlier.

Primary Sidebar

Join The Conversation

What's the best way to follow important issues affecting the Jewish philanthropic world? Our Daily Update keeps you on top of the latest news, trends and opinions shaping the landscape, providing an invaluable source for inspiration and learning.
Sign Up Now
For Email Marketing you can trust.

Continue The Conversation

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Recent Comments

  • Bruce Powell on An Invitation To Transparency: Reflections on an Open Salary Spreadsheet
  • Sara Rigler on Announcement: Catherine Reed named CEO of American Friends of Magen David Adom
  • Donna Burkat on The Blessings in 2020’s Losses
  • swindmueller on Where Do We Go From Here?
    Reflections On 2021
    A Jewish Response to These Uncertain Times
  • Alan Henkin on Where Do We Go From Here?
    Reflections On 2021
    A Jewish Response to These Uncertain Times

Most Read Recent Posts

  • Jewish Agency Accuses Evangelical Contractors of “Numerous Violations” but Denies They Evangelized New Immigrants
  • Breaking: Birthright Israel & Onward Israel Seek to Join Forces to Strengthen Jewish Diaspora Ties with Israel
  • An Invitation To Transparency: Reflections on an Open Salary Spreadsheet
  • Why One Zoom Class Has Generated a Following
  • The Blessings in 2020’s Losses

Categories

The Way Back Machine

Footer

What We Do

eJewish Philanthropy highlights news, resources and thought pieces on issues facing our Jewish philanthropic world in order to create dialogue and advance the conversation. Learn more.

Top 40 Philanthropy Blogs, Websites & Influencers in 2020

Copyright © 2021 · eJewish Philanthropy · All Rights Reserved