Ordinarily, June 23 would not be the optimal time to hold a full-day teachers’ workshop, what with final grades to input and end-of-the year activities, but for the dozens of AMIT network teachers who have spent the past year in a new, groundbreaking program called GOGYA, skipping the workshop never crossed their minds.
Details
On the second week after arriving to spend the year at Midreshet AMIT, I walked outside to familiarize myself with the grounds and noticed a ten-year-old boy alone on the playground. I went over and started speaking to him, and he told me his name was Eliran. We spoke about his school, played some games and tried to name as many animals as we could in English and Hebrew. Eliran was my introduction to the children at Beit Hayeled and from that moment, I knew that this was going to be an incredible year.
Details
Nostalgia is a powerful force in our religious lives. While we may perform rituals with a sense of Halachic obligation and spiritual uplift, the manner in which we perform them often reveals a more personal side to the mitzvot. How many of us can hear the haunting melodies of Kol Nidrei on Yom Kippur or taste the matzo ball soup at the Seder without longing to connect with our own past and to be transported to an earlier time in our lives? There is probably no time of year when this longing is felt more keenly than Tisha B’Av, and nowhere is this sentiment expressed so clearly as in the penultimate verse of Megillat Eicha, which is repeated at the conclusion of the reading of that book: Hashiveinu Hashem eilecha venashuva, chadeish yameinu kekedem: Bring us back to You, O Lord, and we will return, renew our days as of old. This pasuk is invoked in our liturgy throughout the year. When the Torah is returned to the ark on Shabbat and holidays (and for that matter on any other day on which the Torah is read), and at a climactic moment in the Selichot penitential service, we repeat those stirring words.
Details
This year, the AMIT school system, consisting of 110 schools teaching 30,000 students across the country, celebrates 90 years of educational.
Celebrations included a visit to the President’s residence Tuesday morning and a birthday party at the Jerusalem International Convention Center with guest of honor, newly sworn-in Education Minister Naftali Bennett, and interactive booths run by students of the AMIT schools in the afternoon.
Details
AFTER PARTICIPATING IN AMIT’S 90th anniversary mission, I understood what it means to be a part of a winning team. Over 130 people from the U.S. and Israel celebrated AMIT’s contributions to Israel, and we saw what AMIT has in store for the next 90! AMIT’s values of academic excellence, contributions to the state, and impact on Israel’s future were evident throughout the trip.
Details
Jews have always expressed themselves in a rich array of art forms that reflect the vernacular culture of the time and place in which they live. While passage in the Torah (Ex. 15:2) decrees that beautiful implements be made to adorn the Torah, another decree prohibits the making of any image or likeness of man or beast. It is presumed that this prohibition refers to objects made for use in worship—but it undoubtedly also restricted the development of visual arts among the Jews.
Details
AMIT Sderot Religious Junior and Senior High School are one of the first schools in Israel to implement an innovative cyber-program aimed at preparing the youth of Israel for the important tasks they will have to fulfill when they enter the army.
When all the other students have already left for the day, a group of ninth-grade girls makes their way to their school’s computer lab, where they will spend the next three hours attempting to master sophisticated computer language as part of a challenging new cyber-program.
Details
This past October saw the dedication of the Wohl Autotech Training Laboratories at the AMIT State Technological High School in Jerusalem. The program, entitled “Autotech Tools for Success,” will also be open to boys and girls from the adjacent AMIT Nordlicht Religious Technical High School. This state of the art facility and program places the AMIT State Technological High School in Jerusalem in the forefront of advanced automotive diagnostic and technological studies. Offering a three-year curriculum in theoretical studies as well as practical, hands-on learning, the Wohl Autotech Training Laboratory and its curriculum are the first of its kind in Jerusalem and only the fourth in the country. The program has been designated as a pedagogical model for high schools across the country to observe and emulate.
Details
A quiet revolution is taking place in the Haredi community of Israel. The huge growth in the Haredi population (estimated at nearly one million today), cuts in government support and pressure by centrist parties for Haredim to “share the burden” in terms of work and military service are creating fundamental changes in both the ethos and lifestyle of this community. The culture of a life devoted entirely to Torah study is slowly giving way to a more pragmatic approach and acceptance of the need to “work.” Forced by the new reality, more and more young Haredi men are entering or seeking to enter the job market. But after a traditional yeshiva education, which excludes secular subjects, and lacking in basic skills, they find themselves ill-equipped and at a considerable disadvantage. As a result, many Haredi parents are seeking a framework that offers both yeshiva studies and formal education in order to enable their children to enjoy the same job opportunities as others. AMIT Chedvat HaTorah in Jerusalem is one of the pioneering institutions that is helping to prepare Haredi youth for the demands of the 21st century.
Details
Anti-Semitism is menacing Britain. It is guilt-free and under no constraints by historical knowledge. Despite the Holocaust is a subject that pupils in the U.K. must be taught, over sixty-three percent of students did not know that the Holocaust claimed the lives of six million Jews and many thought that Auschwitz was a type of beer. Posters at demonstrations that show a swastika within a Star of David have become so commonplace, that people believe the two are equated. With all the obstacles to ignorance being erased, the future for the Jews of England, and Europe as a whole, seems to be bleak.
Details
