Making it Cool (and Meaningful) to go to Shul

“Shabbat Club” Engages Children and Families With Unique T’fillah Experiences

by Rabbi Rebecca Rosenthal

What do colored stickers and ice cream have to do with enhancing Shabbat experiences for families and making it more likely that they will come to synagogue? A lot, if our experience this year with Shabbat Club – the name given to our Shabbat services and programming geared at families – is any indication.

Shabbat Club was born out of a desire for increased participation by children and families in Shabbat programming at the synagogue. It also fit into the educational goals of our religious rchool, to give the children and families real world experiences with what they are learning in the classroom.

The first thing we did was to create a regular schedule for Shabbat Club — the first Friday and Saturday of every month — and publicize the schedule. This is important because it allowed families to know exactly when things were happening and to plan their schedules accordingly. We made Saturday morning attendance a mandatory part of religious school, but opened Shabbat Club up to any families in the community who wanted to attend. We have had a good mix of religious-school and day-school families in attendance.

Once they are in the room, the second thing we did was to create a service that was meaningful and engaging for both kids and adults. Children have to see that what they are learning in religious school or day school is relevant to their lives, so they are the ones who lead the Junior Congregation service. We have a board with the names of all the prayers velcro-ed onto it, and as the children come in, they choose the prayer they want to lead. We don’t do every prayer, but we do enough to make the services feel complete; we also read three small aliyot of Torah. We conclude with the mourner’s kaddish at the end, so that any parent who needs to say it feels that they can.

I See You

The Story Behind The New Special Resource Guide V’khol Banayikh

by Sara Rubinow Simon

Have you seen the sensational new movie “Avatar”?

It provides a fortuitous segue to V’Khol Banayikh — Jewish Education for All: A Jewish Special Needs Resource Guide.

How?

In the film, the Na’avi humanoids who inhabit Pandora acknowledge and greet each other by saying “I see you,” the Na’avi version of the Hebrew verse from Pirkei Avot 4:27: “Al tistakel b’kankan,elah b’mah sheyesh bo,” or “Don’t look at a container but rather at what is in it.”

The goal of V’Khol Banayikh is to increase awareness of the value of each individual and the gifts that he has to contribute by really “seeing” his essence and discovering ways to enable him to respond to the best of his ability.

It started as a brief professional development guide dealing with Jewish Special Education for classroom teachers, in response to a lack of available materials perceived by our colleagues in the Consortium of Special Educators in Central Agencies for Jewish Education (now called Jewish Special Education International Consortium). It slowly evolved into a compendium of more than five hundred pages of articles and other resources primarily contributed by our Consortium colleagues.