Education at B'nai Zion
--Registration
Form
Holiday Resources
High Holy Day Schedule
Other Links:
B'nai
Zion Educator
Helaine Braunig
The birth of our third grandson has reminded me of the important job that parents have in linking their children to the family members who precede them and the faith community that surrounds them. Both groups—family and community—have a sacred privilege and a sacred task: to nurture our children, to educate our children, and to become role models to our children. In acknowledging the responsibilities and the opportunities that parenthood brings for parents, I am more eager than ever to embrace the obligations placed on the Jewish community to become partners with those parents. Religious School classes offer us the chance to teach children not just facts about holidays, history, and life cycle, but about lives enriched by relationships to God, to people, and to the earth itself. We must not lose sight of what makes our school Jewish: a commitment to Jewish values as expressed in Jewish texts and actions taken that move those values from the textbook page to the world in which we live.
I look
forward to this Religious School year with new goals for myself: to evaluate
the ways
in which the technology of the 21st
century can help us engage our children and communicate quickly and effortlessly
with parents; to incorporate more opportunities for activities that will show
our children that what they are learning is relevant to their lives; to
communicate with every single parent so that our school and our congregations
can anticipate the needs of families who strive to live Jewishly
every
day, not just on Sundays and Hebrew School after noons. I hope that you will
help me by offering your suggestions, your support, your time, and yes, your
money. It takes all of those elements to design programs that are exciting and
new.
By the end of the summer, I will be in Waltham, Massachusetts at the first New CAJE Confer ence — the inaugural Jewish education conference for a revitalized organization. I will then go to the URJ’s Summer Kallah in Glen Cove, New York. When I return to Shreveport, I will have had my spiritual and intellectual batteries re-charged, and I’ll be ready for an innovative year with a veteran faculty. What a great combination!
Classes will begin on Sunday, August 22. Parents, watch for details in your email and on our Facebook page. If you haven’t become a “friend” of the B’nai Zion Religious School on Facebook, do it today!
L’shalom,
Helaine