About Religious School
Our goals are to help our students:
- Develop a strong Jewish identity;
- Apply Jewish ethics to daily life; &
- Acquire the information and skills needed to become knowledgeable members of the Jewish community.
To reach these goals, we have created a learning environment that fosters curiosity, creativity, compassion, and an appreciation for the ideas and opinions of others. Our structured, yet flexible, Jewish curriculum supports the development of independence and group participation. Educators model ethical concepts including concern for others, repect, and appreciation of others’ ideas and opinions. The curriculum consists of the following areas, which are taught in varying degrees in each grade: Holidays, Customs, Ceremonies, Theology and Prayer; Ethics and Values; Hebrew and Torah; and Israel and Jewish History.
Our objectives are based on the goals of the Reform Movement and enable students to:
- Celebrate Shabbat, holidays and festivals; recite prayers, learn rituals, symbols and meaning of each holiday
- Make choices based on Jewish ethics and values
- Identify the central themes and ethical messages within the Torah and integrate them into their lives
- Explore their relationship to God and the role of prayer
- Participate in Shabbat, High Holy Day and festival services; learn the order of the Shabbat service
- Read Hebrew and value it as the language that binds the Jewish people together through generations
- Pray with comprehension, by understanding the general meaning of each prayer
- Develop a relationship to Israel and learn about its history, geography, and modern life
- Draw connections between Jewish thought and traditions and their own lives