Ohio Jewish Chronicle, 1992-08-06

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, , The Ohio Jewish Chronicle
'.-/;'',   '"!   •&(*»'»_ Columbits and the Central Ohio
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NUMBER 32
AUGU&T 6,1992
7 AV 5752
„.b_YOT'ED TO AMEHICAK AND JEWISH IDEALS
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Most Mguage
page 3
Jewish Geography:
Afavorite pastime
page 4
Judith Swedlow named
Campaign vice chair
page 5
Tifereth Israel to honor
Haf old, Bea Mindlin
In The Chronicle
page 6
At The JCC
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EDUCATION FEATURE
T7ie good news about Hebrew School
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By Michael Shapiro
The wonderful thing about
religious school — I speak
here of the after-school and
Sunday variety — is that it
endures as one of the few insti-.
tutions in Jewish life about
which most everyone agrees: It
stinks. So powerful are the
memories — hours that
stretched into weeks that
stretched into years spent
counting cracks in the ceiling
paint — that they transcend
generational and denominational differences. It is the castor oil of Jewish life, a bunjen
• passed from parent to child
with this admonition: I hated
it, you'll hate it; after your Bar
Mitzvah you can quit.
Not long ago, I was asked to
travel around the country and
see whether things were as
gloomy as everyone thought
and, specifically, to find some
bright spots on the religious
school horizon. I mentioned
the.project to my father-in-
law, whose Orthodox Jewish
education so soured him that
he refused to make my wife
and her sisters suffer as he
had. "Why bother," he said of
my journey. "They're all terrible." But are they? Were there
places where Jewish education
was happening in ways that,
taught and inspired? Were
there schools that saw a mission in their work? Were there
.places that did more than offer
the occasional diverting program and weekend's retreat
and instead has created
schools that might serve as
models?       '
I began calling around. I
called educators, authorities
on Jewish education and people who supervised Jewish
schools in cities across the
country. Their responses var
ied. Some spoke glowingly of
schools they knew. Others said
the question I posed was not
an easy one. I did not have a
set of criteria in mind — curriculum, attendance, programming. Rather, I wanted to see
whether certain names appeared over and over, whether
people familiar with Jewish
education nationally and locally had heard good things
about the same schools. What
I wanted was a chorus of disinterested observers telling me,
''You've got to see this place."
I was not interested in compiling a list of the best schools.
Rather, I wanted to see
schools that had succeeded for
different reasons. Excuses for
failure abounded — poor
teachers, indifferent parents,
woeful facilities, an unsuppor-
tive synagogue. But I wanted
to see whether those excuse!
were valid. I wanted to know
led    cl
seV   te
Dw\S!
how certain schools had overcome those obstacles. Because
if they could succeed, why
couldn't all the others?
Beyond their individual accomplishments, I wanted to
know what the successful
schools shared. What separated them from the great many
unsuccessful ones?
I called many people; I received recommendations. Then
I went to look. And what I ■
found was that the wonderful
thing about religious school
was not unanimity in a painful
memory. I found hope.
I found it in San Diego and
Los Gatos, Calif.; in Cleveland, New York and Cambridge, Mass. I even found it
in Missassauqua, Ontario,
Each school had indeed
overcome its own set of obstacles. If one had no supply of
teachers, another had bor-
see SCHOOL pg; 12
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