An Open Letter to Beit Midrash Parents and Teens:

As the new year for Beit Midrash is soon upon us, I wanted to take a moment to introduce the enhancements we have made to this year’s program.

This year’s theme is Modern Israel. Almost all of the classes will help the teens understand how far Israeli society and Israelis have come from the early days of 1948 to build a modern, thriving and very successful society through food, music, film, innovations and dance.

Further, another course will develop for the teens a substantial relationship between our community and our partner region in Israel, Hadera-Eiron, through a project called, Roots, and a course on advocacy issues and the Middle East where the teens will develop their own advocacy guide, shaped by their own perceptions and experiences.

In addition, we are bringing to the program a never-before-in-Jacksonville 40-foot-long by 8-foot-high Israel in the Modern Age display (17 panels) that is on loan to this community for the specific purpose of being a resource for Beit Midrash. We know that this display will add an extra dimension to our collective understanding of Modern Israel.

I truly believe that we have assembled a very strong core group of instructors for this coming year, all of them are very excited about the overall theme and topics – when we teach dance, the teens will learn about the ethnic roots of the dance; when Cantor Holzer explores modern Israeli music, it will be through the prism of how modern Israeli society has moved past the dirges of war to the sounds of a modern and progressive society; when they do the Roots program (the first of two core grade 9 classes), the teens will connect on a regular basis with teens of their own age from Hadera, and learn that they have more in common than they would have believed; and when Rabbi Rafi Cohen teaches his Visions of Israel Today class (the second of the two grade 9 core classes), he will also explore images, sights and sounds of Israel today. And all of this is to show and teach them that Modern Israel, while rooted in the past, is very much a present-day society

Finally, we are also going to invite you, the parents of our Beit Midrash teens, to come into the synagogue and visit with Beit Midrash, view the Israel display and take a class.
This year we are going to hold, one in the first semester and two in the second, classes for parents who want to learn a little of what their teens are being taught. In the first term the class will be Karen Morse’s Roots – Partnership course, and in the second term our new Federation professional, Dr. Adam Bronstone, give a lecture on Israel advocacy and Cantor Holzer will teach a class on modern Israeli music. We will let all of you know of the dates and times, and we encourage all of you to drop in and learn with us about Modern Israel.

Recently, the new Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, a very well-known author on the Middle East, was asked if Zionism was either dead or dying. His answer was this:

“The death of Zionism is demonstrably untrue,” he said. “More people speak Hebrew than Danish, Israel publishes more poetry per capita than any other country, it’s a global leader in high tech and biotech, it can field one of the world’s most proficient and moral armies — and it has great rock music.”

And we aim this year to help educate our teens about this vision of Israel – of rock music and books, of scientific discovery and Hebrew, all within a setting of fun and enjoyment.
We hope that you are as excited as we are about the upcoming year. If you have any suggestions, we look forward to hearing from you. Our staff professional, Adam Bronstone, can easily be reached by email at adamb@jewishjacksonville.org.

Leslie Held
Chair, Beit Midrash