JUDAISM & ISRAEL: THEN & NOW

Last year, NCJW’s much loved but well worn HELLO ISRAEL program got a make-over. The program, now 30 years old, annually placed NCJW presenters in classrooms to teach middle school age kids about Israel in fun and interactive ways. And while we try to remain interactive and enjoyable, our newly rewritten presentations have more focus and new credibility thanks to help from local middle school teachers and experts from the University of Minnesota. The curriculum now conforms to Minnesota State Academic Standards in History, Social Studies and Geography for grades 4-12.

Organized into four subject modules JUDAISM AND ISRAEL: THEN AND NOW allows educators to select modules for their students that fit squarely into their content area, are designed for presentation during a single class period and that go along with subject material covered at specific points in the school year, thus maximizing the flexibility of our program at varying grade levels. Volunteer presenters are already in classrooms using the new scripts, as well as new PowerPoint visuals and interactive props.

In October 2009 the new curriculum was introduced to teachers at Geofest, an annual event organized by the Minnesota Alliance for Geographic Education at Macalester College to showcase enrichment resources available to Minnesota social studies teachers. It was extremely well received. As we move forward we will continue to schedule training sessions for volunteer presenters to get acquainted with the new materials. While the program is delivered free to classrooms and teachers, there is a cost to continually producing hand out materials and maintaining the presentations and props as well as to presenting and exhibiting at social studies and geography conferences around the state to provide exposure to the program.