Jewish Spiritual Literacy

EDUCATING EDUCATORS - We continued to expand the quantity and quality of the J-IDEA teacher training program's 10 major content categories: Jewish Holidays, Art of Amazement, Esoteric, Marriage, Ritual, Ethics, Meditation & Prayer, Texts, History and Miscellaneous. In addition, we directly trained and mentored another cohort of 8 educators, increasing their skills at implementing experiential learning, and their thousands of students. JSL pedagogy provided them with fresh and innovative ways to motivate students in learning and develop their respect and love of Judaism. Participants register for free at jewishspirituality.net.

E-LEARNING - Our daily video Torah classes continued uninterrupted throughout the Pandemic. Our weekly "Table Talk" entered its fourteenth year, bringing food for thought and discussion to thousands of Friday night dinner tables worldwide.

JTI - The Jewish Teachers Institute - In its fifth year, this project to train and mentor teachers for Jewish day schools expanded to schools outside Baltimore. We Zoom-trained 30 teachers serving approximately 750 students, with added modules on distance-teaching. The JTI "New Teacher Boot Camp" includes: model and practice a Harry Wong-informed classroom management method, simple concrete indicators of successful teaching (following Thomas Sergiovanni's and Elliot Eisner's models of professional standards), lesson planning and assessments, principles of visual and differentiated instruction and hands-on engagement, effective use of textbooks A/V resources and other technologies; with specific curricular support as well. All participants increased their knowledge and skills in one or more of the above categories. JTI-trained teachers increased their classroom effectiveness and were more likely to continue teaching.

MEDIA DISTRIBUTION - Our worldwide book distribution slowed but did not stop during the Pandemic, including the best-selling "Art of Amazement: Discover Judaism's Forgotten Spirituality" in two languages, the "Art of Amazement Haggada", plus the Bar Mitzvah Album, found at barmitzvahalbum.com. Thousands of visitors found quality books and toys via our searchable site, bestjewishkidsbooks.com.

AMAZING NATURE FOR TEACHERS - NIFLA'OT - MA RABU! - The Pandemic significantly slowed this innovative program that empowers teachers across the curriculum with the wonders of nature in order to increase their students' joy of learning and sense of connectedness to the classroom and to life. The three versions enable the materials to be used in any classroom across the curriculum. This year we devoted our marketing exclusively to Jewish summer camps.

TORAH HEALTH AND FITNESS - Torah Health and Fitness is a response to a growing awareness that the Jewish community has not paid enough attention to this mitzvah. We have the same health stats as the general public including tragic levels of preventable conditions such as diabetes and cardio-vascular disease. Our mission as the Jewish People is greatly handicapped because we are not meeting this challenge. Yet we have tremendous Torah wisdom and medical knowledge on how to improve this situation! We have 3,000 years of wisdom on this subject, but until now it has been scattered across many books, most of which have never been translated. In partnership with doctors and dietitians, the program includes current medical information (with references to medical literature) on what is known about nutrition, exercise, weight loss and longevity. We hope that this combination of Torah wisdom and medical knowledge will increase awareness of how vital and easy it is to eat and exercise (etc.) healthfully and to increase the holiness with which we treat our bodies, and thereby keep Jews out of the hospital, nursing homes, and wheelchairs for preventable reasons. While Jewishly-focused, our long-term goal is to help anyone of any background achieve improvements in health, wellbeing and longevity. This year we continued to revise and pilot the materials with various audiences across the Jewish spectrum with a goal of launching in 2022.

GADLUS HA-ADAM - This after-school program for elementary and middle-school children uses music and other arts to engage them Jewishly. This year we serviced nearly 60 children.