Summer seems like a slow time at temple, but a lot of exciting things are happening as we prepare to welcome 5770 this September. We are preparing for the fall Holy days, welcoming prospective members (if you know someone who might like to join, call us or bring them in with you!), getting the building ready and organizing classes for our Nursery School, Religious School and Adult Jewish Learning. I would like to share three things that are coming or have already arrived at B’nai Israel:

Legacy Heritage Innovation Project: Israel Engagement
Congregation B’nai Israel has been selected as one of seven synagogues across the United States to receive Legacy Heritage Innovation Project: Israel Engagement grants for 2009-10.

The Legacy Heritage Innovation Project: Israel Engagement is a new initiative to support synagogues which are breaking new ground by integrating Israel-related programming throughout all age groups and aspects of Jewish life (learning, prayer and social action). We will receive a one-year grant of $16,000 to support the work of our Israel Task Force (see page 7), including sending some of our teachers to Israel, bringing in guest lecturers and developing Israel programming across all areas of the congregation.

The Legacy Heritage Innovation Project: Israel Engagement aims to encourage synagogues to strengthen connections between congregants and the people, culture, and history of the State of Israel by integrating Israel awareness throughout multiple aspects of Jewish life and within diverse congregational demographic groups. The seven new congregational grantees were chosen as a result of a highly competitive process.

As a recipient of a Legacy Heritage Innovation Project: Israel Engagement grant, we will be eligible to apply for up to two additional years of funding to develop our approach. Representatives from temple will join leaders from other Legacy Heritage Innovation Project: Israel Engagement grantees at a training seminar next October.

The Legacy Heritage Innovation Project is sponsored by Legacy Heritage Programming LLC, an affiliate of Legacy Heritage Fund Limited. Further information on the Legacy Heritage Innovation Project: Israel Engagement is available at www.legacyheritage.org, or from Rabbi Marc Margolius, Project Director, at marcm@lhfl.net.

Legacy Heritage Fund Smart Board Project
We have received a Smart Board from the Legacy Heritage Fund in response to a second grant proposal. It has been installed in one of our upstairs classrooms and will be available for any of our teachers to use. Many of our teachers have already been trained in its use.

If you have a school-aged child you are already familiar with this tool. SMART Boards are whiteboards that have touch sensitive screens and are interactive tools that invite student participation in the learning process. They positively affect learning by helping to raise the level of student engagement, motivation and enthusiasm within the classroom.

The SMART Board Jewish Educational Database, which was developed by Legacy Heritage Fund through this initiative, enables knowledge sharing throughout the world of Jewish education and offers educators ready-made SMART Board lessons searchable in a variety of topic areas and grades. Our teachers will also develop their own lessons using the SMART Board and submit them to the national Database.

The Jim Joseph Foundation Fellows – Leading Educators Online
Our Director of Education, Ira Wise, has kept busy this past spring and summer. In addition to writing the two Legacy Heritage grant proposals, he was also nominated by Rabbi Prosnit to be a Jim Joseph Fellow at the Lookstein Insitute for Jewish Education in the Diaspora. The Lookstein Insitute is part of Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, where part of the fellows’ work will take place.

Ira was selected as one of fourteen fellows from a field of over two hundred nominees. They will identify, direct and empower Fellows to develop and lead online collaborative communities in their professional fields. The purpose of the Fellowship is to provide leading edge professional development to outstanding Jewish educators from formal (e.g. supplementary, congregational, and day schools) and informal Jewish education settings (e.g. camps, youth groups, community centers). They will work together to advance new ways of learning and working together to bring about qualitative changes in the way Jewish educators work with others as they learn.

In Eilu v’Eilu (an adult learning e-mail form the URJ – go to http://urj.org/learning/torah/ten/eilu/ to subscribe) this summer, Ira wrote “…our people are spending significant time in the digital world. When they come into the synagogue, we often ask them to unplug and turn off – or at least silence – their devices that make those connections.
I believe that one of our tasks as educators is to learn about and engage in some of those technologies and find ways to use them to make Jewish connections. If a significant portion of their world is viewed through the digital lens, we need to make sure that Jews see Jewish ideas, Jewish learning and connect with people Jewishly through that lens. If we remain only in their analog vision, we will be an increasingly smaller image in their perceptions. Eventually Judaism will become a quaint antique on the shelf with other classics – valued as classics, but not often reread by many.”

We are very proud that our educator has been named a Jim Joseph Fellow, and look forward to benefiting from what he learns over the next two years. In addition, the grants won through Ira’s efforts will enrich our community in ways beyond what we would have been able to achieve on our own during these difficult economic times.

Amy Rich,
President