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The State of Hebrew Education: Insights from Toronto and Beyond

The latest State of the Field, contains a study conducted by UJA Federation of Greater Toronto in collaboration with Rosov Consulting which presents attitudes of various stakeholders to Hebrew education in the Jewish day school. Although the study was conducted in Toronto, we believe it is reflective of other communities around North America.

The study reports on the attitude of parents, students and teachers toward teaching and learning Hebrew, including Contemporary (Modern) and Classical Hebrew in Modern, Traditional and Hybrid schools. It showed that while parents value Hebrew, parents of children in Modern Schools valued Hebrew the least, while those in Hybrid or Traditional Schools, valued different Hebrews, with those in Traditional Schools opting for Classical Hebrew and those in Hybrid schools preferring Modern Hebrew.

The study revealed that parents and students value Hebrew for different reasons, with parents valuing more the symbolic reasons while students were more interested in the practical application of the language. However, what the study surfaced is that the enjoyment from learning Hebrew poses a challenge. While those students in Modern schools disliked all Hebrew learning, with Classical being more disliked than Contemporary Hebrew, students in Hybrid schools enjoyed Contemporary Hebrew very little but had a negative enjoyment from Classical Hebrew. Only students in Traditional Schools enjoyed Hebrew both Contemporary (very little) and Classical (significantly).

Interestingly, parents’ satisfaction with Hebrew education is less than 50% with either Contemporary or Classical Hebrew in Modern Schools, between 50 and 60 percent in Hybrid schools, and only 28% satisfaction with Contemporary Hebrew and 63% satisfaction with Classical Hebrew in Traditional Schools.

Worth the Read

Read the 2024 State of the Field Report: Hebrew Education in North American Jewish Day Schools to see the latest research and data about Hebrew Education.

Read our 2024 Impact Report to see what we at Hebrew at the Center have been up to, and the impact your contributions help make happen.

Join Hebrew teachers, Hebrew leaders, and other school leaders for an intensive, virtual conference November 16-17, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm EDT. 

Click here for more information and to register

ARNEE WINSHALL

President

Ms. Winshall is the Founding Board President of Hebrew at the Center and Founding Chair of JCDS, Boston’s Jewish Community Day School.  Arnee serves as an advisor to the Mayberg Foundation Jewish Education Innovation Challenge  and the Council for American Jewish Museums. Most recently she helped to guide the formation of DEEP , a professional learning community of Developing Embedded Expertise Programs that serve Jewish day schools. Through the years she has served on the board of numerous Jewish education organizations. She was the first recipient of Hebrew College’s Sidney Hillson/Rose Bronstein Award for distinguished leadership in Jewish education, Hebrew language, and the advancement of Jewish culture and civilization. In 2015, she was named as an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Hebrew Language in Jerusalem. Having pursued graduate studies in developmental psycholinguistics and studied 7 languages, Arnee is passionate about the power of learning languages and, in particular, Hebrew as the language of the Jewish people.

JOANNE BLAUER, CLERK

MEMBER, Board of directors

Joanne Blauer [Clerk] formerly was the Associate Dean and Secretary and Executive Vice Dean of Weill Cornell Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences until her retirement in 2010. Ms. Blauer served as COO of HATC from January, 2010 through August, 2011. In addition, she has served on the boards of Scripps College and the National Association of College and University Attorneys and is a member of the Washington State Bar Association. 

Neil Kuttner is the Chief Operations Officer of Cross Shore Capital Management, LLC, a registered investment advisor. He has worked in the financial services industry for forty years, previously at Sanford Bernstein & Co. where he was the CFO

Neil is a CPA and has also taught tax planning at Lehman College. Neil has BA in economics from City College of New York and a master’s degree in business administration from the Wharton School.

Neil lives in Manhattan and has two grown sons, Sam and Matthew, both of whom are involved Jewishly.

 Neil has long been active in the Jewish community has previously served as treasurer of Camp Ramah in New England, treasurer of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, board chair of the Academy for Jewish

Religion, and synagogue president of Park Slope Jewish Center. In addition, he has spent the last couple of years as a member of HATC’s finance committee.

Neil views fluency in Hebrew as one of the important building blocks in positive Jewish identity, though his Hebrew language skills do need brushing up. He is looking forward to continue contributing both his time and expertise to HATC.

MOREY LEVOVITZ

Member, Board of directors

Morey Levovitz lives in Park City Utah and Westport CT. He is Married with 4 Children and 10 grandchildren. He has been an entrepreneur in real estate development, real estate management, silicon wafer related services, travel, music, fish processing and fish farming. He is an investor in real estate, bio tech, medical devices and small start-up companies and is the President of AVI Business Management.


Morey has served as President of both Beth Jacob Congregation and Harkham Hillel Academy both in Beverly Hills, CA. He has also spent many years as a consultant for AIPAC and The Orthodox Union. He is the current Board Chair of FIDF (Friends of The Israel Defense Forces), an organization that raises more than $100 million for humanitarian aid for the soldiers of the IDF.

Daniel Serfaty is Founder & Chairman of Aptima, Inc.

As Aptima’s Founder and CEO, Daniel Serfaty has led Aptima to become the premier Human Performance Engineering business in the world. His work optimizes the integration of humans with intelligent technologies in defense, healthcare, aerospace, and education. His keynote addresses around the world are encouraging his audiences to imagine a future in which human and artificial intelligences work together in the service of humankind.

Daniel’s interdisciplinary background includes degrees in mathematics, psychology, aerospace engineering, and international business from the Université de Paris, the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and University of Connecticut. His doctoral work has pioneered the study of distributed command teams. He is the recipient of the UConn Distinguished Service Award and has been inducted in its Engineering Hall of Fame.

Daniel is the co-Chair of the New England Israeli American Council (IAC) and serves on the boards of several business and philanthropic organizations in both the United States and Israel, with an eye towards building bridges between these communities.

WALTER A. WINSHALL

Member, Board of directors

Walter A. Winshall is a Principal in an investment firm specializing in the commercialization of technology. In addition to HATC, he is a board member of the Yiddish Book Center and the MIT Hillel. He was a founding board member of JCDS, Boston’s Jewish Community Day School. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. A long time ago, he graduated from MIT in electrical engineering and from the Harvard Law School.

SHARONA GIVOL
CO-FOUNDER
Sharona, in her capacity as the Director of the Hebrew Language Program at JCDS, Boston’s Jewish Community Day School, served as the JCDS Project Manager for the Covenant Foundation Grant which helped to underwrite the pilot phase that led to the launch of HATC. After joining JCDS Boston in 2002, she began working with Dr. Ringvald to develop and refine the Hebrew language acquisition tools, teacher workshops, and mentoring programs that are now being shared with Hebrew language and Jewish educators around the world. While teaching grades 5-9 in Israel, Sharona was responsible for helping foster children adapt to their new families and communities. She managed a center for children with learning disabilities, working with dyslexic Middle School students. Later she co-founded the Community Day School of the Northern Golan Heights. From 1986 to 1997 Sharona worked for the “Logal” educational software company in Israel, as Director of Reading Comprehension and Language Arts.
VARDIT RINGVALD
CO-FOUNDER
Vardit Ringvald, Ph.D., is a CV Starr Research Professor of Languages and Linguistics. She is the founding Director of the Brandeis-Middlebury School of Hebrew, established in 2007. Prof. Ringvald recently concluded nearly three decades at Brandeis University, most recently as the Director of the Hebrew Language Department. Along with her colleagues, she published Brandeis Modern Hebrew, Vol. 1, which has become North America’s most popular college Hebrew language textbook. Vol. 2 was published in June, 2013. She is an expert in the application of the proficiency approach to foreign language instruction and the development of competency-based curriculum for teaching Modern Hebrew in all educational settings at all levels, implementing authentic materials and methods for integrating Hebrew culture into the classroom. She is a founding member of the Hebrew Language Council (HLC) of North America and in 2013, she was appointed to the Committee for Teacher Certification Examinations of NYSED (The New York State Education Department). She led the Hebrew language initiative of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and served as the chairperson of the SAT II for Hebrew. She is a founding board member of JCDS, Boston’s Jewish Community Day School.