Evolving tradition
Efforts to update Hebrew school reflect wider changes, temples say
It's well accepted in the Jewish community that children are not exactly banging down doors to attend Hebrew school.
Take, for example, sixth-grader Daniel Benett of Newton. Asked what word would best describe his after-school Hebrew education at Newton's Temple Emanuel, the 12-year-old did not hesitate: "Pointless," he said.
This year, Benett regularly asked his mother, Susan Diller, to drive slowly to Temple Emanuel to forestall the inevitable. "It was painful," Diller said, "because instead of being engaged by what he was learning, he was worse than being bored. He was being turned off."
The point is not lost on the schools. "Others over the years have voiced similar concerns," wrote Rabbi Wesley R. Gardenswartz of Temple Emanuel, in an e-mailed answer to an inquiry. "In response to those concerns, we tried tweaking," he wrote. "We needed not tweaking, but transformation."
Enrollment at the temple's Hebrew school is down by about 100 students over the past 15 years, with 235 students in kindergarten through seventh grade this spring.
From 12,400 students attending 81 Hebrew schools in Greater Boston in 2002, the figure dipped to 10,505 attending 69 schools last year, according to the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Boston. (Four area Hebrew schools did not report enrollment numbers.)
"At stake is the heart and soul and minds of our children, as Jews and as engaged citizens," Gardenswartz said in an interview.
So Temple Emanuel, whose 1,100 member families make it the largest Conservative congregation in New England, is about to implement sweeping, and controversial, changes aimed at making its Hebrew school experience more relevant. It's a rare effort in a system that traditionally is reluctant to experiment, one described by some educators as stuck in an old-fashioned model and lacking new technology.
"We don't want any more jokes about bad Hebrew schools," said Gardenswartz. "We want kids to say, 'Wow, I love it.' "
Other area synagogues, many also struggling with declining Hebrew school enrollment, are closely watching the changes at Emanuel.
Temple Emanuel's reinvention begins this fall, when sixth- and seventh-graders will be transplanted to Prozdor, a well-regarded supplementary school for teens at Hebrew College in Newton.
"The idea is to take some of the pixie dust from the new Prozdor and sprinkle it on the middle-school kids," said Jonathan Sarna, a well-known author and lecturer on Jewish life and a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University.
The Emanuel middle-schoolers will attend Prozdor on Sundays, selecting a Judaic studies or Hebrew language track and a variety of upbeat electives - such as "Jews, Movies and the American Dream," and "Israeli Top 40." Under a collaborative program called Makor, the Hebrew word for "source," they will return to Temple Emanuel on Tuesdays. There, classes taught by clergy will connect students to the synagogue as they approach their bar or bat mitzvah, the Jewish ritual welcome to adulthood.
Marjorie Berkowitz, Prozdor's director, said the goal is for other interested synagogues to be folded into the Makor program within five years, and for Makor classes to be hosted at sites throughout the region.
News of the pending changes provoked intense anger among the teachers at Temple Emanuel's Hebrew school, since teaching jobs are being cut. From 20 teaching positions, only 12 will remain, and staffers were told they would have to apply for the jobs to be considered. Several Emanuel teachers declined to be quoted about the controversy, citing concern for their professional reputations.
Enrollment is declining at congregation-based Hebrew schools across the country. At their peak in the 1950s, about 491,000 students attended the supplementary Hebrew schools, learning about religious ritual, Hebrew language, Israeli history, and Jewish texts after public school hours or on weekends. Today, the number is about 230,000, according to Jack Wertheimer, a history professor at Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. Wertheimer said the results of his census of Hebrew schools, the first in more than 20 years, is to be published this summer.
Wertheimer attributes the plunge in enrollment to the demographics of the Jewish baby boomers who attended Hebrew schools during those peak years.
In contrast, attendance at Jewish day schools, where students study the Old Testament and Hebrew alongside a full curriculum of science, math, and social studies, has spiked 23 percent in 10 years, according to figures provided by Boston-based Combined Jewish Philanthropies.
There is no available research showing how social factors, such as intermarriage or enrollment in Jewish day schools, have affected Hebrew school enrollments, although some educators speculate that they do play a role.
"Whereas a good deal of attention went into day schools, Hebrew schools tended to be stepchildren," said Brandeis professor Sarna.
George Krupp, 63, recalls his Hebrew school experience at Temple Emeth in Chestnut Hill as "brutal." Krupp, who still lives in Chestnut Hill and is cochairman of the Berkshire Group, a real estate and financial services firm, is pushing the invigoration of cultural, language and religious education efforts as a priority at Combined Jewish Philanthropies, where he cochairs the agency's 10-year strategic plan.
The Makor program offered by Prozdor is a key component of this transformation, Krupp said, adding, "If we can . . . bring our commitment to the 21st century with technology and intense programming, I think we have a shot at engaging the young adults."
Not everyone agrees that Hebrew schools are necessarily troubled. Stephen R. Simons, educational director at Congregation Mishkan Tefila in Newton's Chestnut Hill section, points to a robust curriculum at his school that places an emphasis on real-world concepts found outside the textbook. This year, students met a dog named Lucy who was trained by the Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind, and the Purim holiday was celebrated with the student klezmer band, led by a professional musician.
"This makes everything alive and well and relevant," said Simons, adding that he'll monitor Makor's success before gauging student interest in the program.
Congregation B'Nai Torah, a Reform synagogue in Sudbury, is developing a niche role in Hebrew education, according to program director Sandy Shufrin. "We've created a different kind of a school," she said.
More than a third of Shufrin's students have special needs, she said, and B'Nai Torah uses alternate teaching methods to reach youngsters with autism and anxiety disorders. Yet Shufrin said she still struggles with attendance. The school serves 250 students, down from 300 two years ago, with close to 75 percent belonging to interfaith families.
"I have parents who pull their kids out for everything," she said.
"As soon as their child gets bar or bat mitzvahed they're out of here - they don't even finish off the grade."
Danny Margolis, executive director of the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Boston, said that, in general, the transformation of Hebrew schools offers larger benefits.
"The positive angle is in the Jewish community across North America, congregations are looking inward a bit and trying to figure out how they serve the various populations they have," he said.
It's unclear whether changes like the ones at Temple Emanuel will halt the decline of enrollment, yet its proponents insist on the need for action.
"We're losing too many of the next generation," said Prozdor's Berkowitz. "We need to find a way to bring the best we know in Jewish education to the religious school." 