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Year in Review 2023–24: Beit Midrash—House of Study

07/16/2024 03:18:28 PM

Jul16

As a beit midrash (house of study), TBE offers lifelong education in our excellent Religious and Hebrew School and Jewish experiences for all ages. 

Throughout a busy 2023–24, we celebrated the b’nai mitzvah of 11 students, our Hebrew school classes were introduced to a new curriculum, the Swarsensky Memorial Weekend offered teachings from an inspiring Chicago rabbi, and our weekly Torah Study sessions explored texts beyond the Five Books. Read more below about how learning continues at TBE.

Check out the other sections of our Year in Review 2023–24 to read about our worship, community events, and social action activities.


Youth Education Committee

 The Youth Education Committee collaborates with the director of lifelong learning and other TBE staff to provide an engaging and fulfilling Religious School experience for children at Temple. We help with Religious School and youth group programming and events, as well as provide policy support and feedback.

This year we introduced chugim (activities) to the Religious School schedule. Chugim included: 

  • Library, where Men’s Club volunteers read to our youngest learners and students can check out books to read at home.
  • Rikud (Israeli Dance), which got everyone up and moving.
  • Cooking, where our older students learned kitchen skills, Jewish and Israeli recipes, and Hebrew vocabulary all at the same time.
  • Art, where students made beautiful Judaica.
  • Chug Ivrit, where Hebrew came to life in project-based learning. 

The Youth Education Committee sold snacks before and after Hebrew School this year, which funded the Hanukkah candles that all families received as a gift just before the holiday. 

Security continues to be top of mind. We have updated security procedures and signage and are exploring additional improvements. We are grateful to the many volunteers who were greeters on Sunday mornings. 

Our students began learning modern Hebrew this year as part of the curriculum. The students made great progress and we look forward to building on this program to create learners who are conversational in Hebrew by the time they finish their studies at TBE.

The MaTTY Pasta Dinner and Dessert Auction featured a “whodunit” mystery theme this year. 
The Youth Education Committee hosts one Koffee Kibbitz per grade level each year at Café Panim to give grade-level parents/guardians time to get to know one another while their children are at Religious School.
 

MaTTY (9th–12th grade) 
MaTTY has made considerable progress this year. We started off the year with 12 high schoolers attending our mini-golf event and ended the year with 16 attending our last Maccabiah event, which was planned entirely by the MaTTY board.

MaTTY is self-funded by the annual MaTTY Pasta Dinner and Dessert Auction. This year we raised over $2,000, which was divided up between the MaTTY Programming Fund and TBE’s scholarship fund for NFTY (Reform Jewish youth movement) activities. Here is the list of our events with the number of high school students attending each one:

  • Mini-golf event: 12
  • Hanukkah party: 12
  • Bowling event: 14
  • Maccabiah event: 16

MuTTY (6th–8th grade) and JEWniors (3rd–5th grade) 
MuTTY and JEWniors had four combined Youth Day events this year immediately following Religious School. Attendance ranged from 10 to 25 participants. 


Congregational Education Committee 

Swarsensky Memorial Weekend
The 2023 Swarsensky Memorial Weekend scholar-in-residence was Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann of Mishkan Chicago. During three events over the weekend, she brought us (1) new and inspiring perspectives on the lighting of Shabbat candles, (2) a deep reading of the Torah portion Chayei Sarah (Life of Sarah), and (3) ideas and personal examples of ways to make Jewish community work for younger and diverse Jews. Many congregants expressed their gratitude for how her visit offered opportunities to think creatively about enriching relationships within our congregation.

My Jewish Journey
Over three Sundays in March 2024, we engaged in conversations to learn and share individual histories of members of the congregation. 

  • We heard from Orly Klugman and Arik Roginsky, both Israeli Americans.
  • We heard from immigrants Irina and Yefim Shklyar (from Belarus), Rubi Hayam (from Turkey), and Marta Karlov (from Colombia).
  • We heard from two Jews by choice: Todd Giesfeldt and Francesca Rodriquez.
  • Recognizing that many of us were not born and raised in American Jewish families, we wanted to understand about the many pathways of nationality and culture that have contributed to our TBE community.
Right to left: Yefim and Irina Shklyar, Marta Karlov, Rubi Hayam, and moderator Charles Cohen.

Beyond the Five Books
For the third year, the Torah Study group in five of its regular Saturday morning sessions explored other readings from our sacred writings beyond the first five books, the Torah.

  • The Book of Esther, led by Larry Kohn
  • The Book of Joshua (1–8), led by Steve Olson
  • Finding King David/The Book of Samuel, led by David Kopstein
  • Proverbs, led by Steven Crade
  • Images of the Matriarchs in the Torah, led by Alan Garfield
April 30, 2025 2 Iyar 5785