Blog

  • The Doctor is In: Session Two – Advice for Parents during Summer 2020

    Before someone stops reading and says, “But you aren’t a parent, you don’t understand ….” I know that.  I am setting forth this advice, not as a tremendously exhausted, frustrated, scared and depleted parent, but I am saying it as a career educator, youth educator, on-line/virtual learner (Master’s and Doctorate) and on-line instructor. So many…

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  • The Doctor is In: Session One – Advice for Parents of HS Seniors 2020

    With my newly minted Doctor of Education (EdD) degree, I offer this advice amid the Covid19/Coronovirus Pandemic: Many colleges/universities are not yet sure how they are going to handle the launch of their Fall 2020 semesters … will they be on-line, will they be cancelled, will they be on campus, will they be delayed and…

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  • The Doctor Is In (Finally!)

    After a 10-year journey, I have OFFICIALLY completed my EdD (Doctorate of Education). My doctorate, from Northeastern University, focused on K-12 Education.  In addition, I was dual-enrolled in Hebrew College where I received a Doctoral Certificate in Jewish Education Leadership. My dissertation, entitled “Understanding How Under-Engaged Jewish Teens Self-Articulate and Self-Express Jewish Identity and Jewish…

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  • Unexpected Impact (of my own Israel Education)

    When I was 16 and went off to Alexander Muss High School in Israel, I didn’t know that the 8+ weeks studying Israeli history, walking the land and experiencing Israel as a temporary resident would cause me to completely shift my thinking more about my Judaism through an “historic” lens – ancestral and heritage –…

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  • Tis The Season… To Be Triggered

    I am not even sure where to start … maybe about what this is actually not about: If you are an interfaith family, honoring multiple holiday traditions in your home, “separate but equal,” this is not what this commentary is about.   What this IS about is a growing and very troubling (to me) assertion…

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  • A proposal to end “adult b’nai mitzvah” as we know them and create anew!

    It seems that I am destined to continually revisit the role that bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies play in the life cycle of Jews.  Many blogs have already been written by me about how we should re-think the “adultness” of 12/13 year olds and instead amp up a lifecycle ceremony for our emerging adults as…

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  • Signature Pedagogies

    As part of my participation in the M2: Institute for Experiential Jewish Education Senior Educators’ Cohort, I was challenged to write my “Signature Pedagogies.” It was really a fascinating introspection to think about what education strategies I default to and why.   Here is what I developed: As a commitment to pluralism of ideas, I utilize…

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  • A #JDAIM Read of Mishpatim

    Originally posted on Kolot Ha’Dor In the parsha Mishpatim, God gives Moses very detailed rules about how the people of Israel should live their lives. The parsha outlines three festive holidays for the people to observe and celebrate: Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot, and it lays out the terms of the covenant – a new land…

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  • UPDATE: Menschlikheit is important!

    Back in January 2018, I wrote this blog post about how Jews need to branch out beyond “spiritual” and “religious” when describing their Jewish identity.   In that post, I posited five aspects of Jewish identity:  Observance, Expression, Knowledge/Literacy, Connection and Spirituality.  Then I asked readers to weigh in on if a sixth category, of…

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  • It’s Not Jewish to be “Religious and/or Spiritual”

    During my doctor classwork, I read Robert Wuthnow’s After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion.   In one section, Wuthnow calls a trend of young adults growing a separation between spirituality and religion as “troubling,” (p. 131).  He says it’s an “explicit rejection of organized religion by people who are still interested somehow…

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  • A politically Conservative, Jewishly liberal person … these and these are both divine.

    Last year (2016-2017), I was teaching a group of high school juniors and seniors in a Reform congregation.  The teens really wanted to talk about the election (pre and post) and all of the platform issues shaping the discourse in the country.  One teen, who was very active in the NFTY youth chapter at the…

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  • Re-Visioning the Jewish “Coming of Age” with post-B/M teens

    I can’t remember how long ago I came to the conclusion that the Jewish community was doing itself a disservice by continuing to celebrate Jewish adulthood at the age of 12/13, however it is something I am quite passionate about.  I have blogged about this previously (At what age are we ready to CHOOSE Judaism? and…

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