As the single largest provider of Israel engagement programs in the United States, Jewish National Fund strongly maintains that investing in education is critical to creating the next generation of Jewish community leaders and Zionists.

You’re receiving this because at some point you have encountered, and likely worked with, JNF. Whether you had one of our Israel Programs Admissions Directors IPADs come to your class to teach your students, or you’ve been to a JNF event, we have in some way impacted you. Every year we work with hundreds of educators to engage tens of thousands of young Jews. We want to do more.

To that end, we are pleased to bring you our new education newsletter. It is designed to inform and connect you and your students to Jewish National Fund, the Jewish world, and Israel.

We invite you to read below to learn more!

Last year, in honor of Israel’s 70th birthday, Jewish National Fund sent out packages to 325 middle and high schools with a unique program about Megillat Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Declaration of Independence. This year, in celebration of Yom Ha’atzmaut, we are offering you the opportunity to download these materials to use in your schools and classrooms.

In the program, we travel back in time to the magical moment of the establishment of the State of Israel, when David Ben-Gurion read Israel’s Declaration of Independence (or as we will refer to it in this program in translation from Hebrew “The Independence Megillah”, or “The Megillah”) in Independence Hall in Tel Aviv. By reading this declaration aloud to the world, David Ben-Gurion spoke the State of Israel into existence.

The Megillah establishes the foundation for the guiding principles and values of the State of Israel while providing us with many insights into:

• The history of the Jewish people and their connection to the land of Israel 
• The character of a Jewish and Democratic state. 
• The relationship between the Jewish people and the Arab people. 
• The connection between the Jewish people who live in Israel and those living in the Diaspora.

In this program we are going to use The Megillah as a platform to talk about the vision of the State of Israel and connect it to our values in a way that will be relevant. We hope that you will find this program meaningful, topical, and interesting for you and your participants.

To download materials, visit jnf.org/yhintheschools

Judi Rapaport    

Judi Rapaport has inspired generations as a long-time, all-star educator at Solomon Schechter Day School (SSDS) of Greater Boston. For many years, Judi has run the annual Tu BiShvat Walkathon. Her dedication has made SSDS one of our top fundraising schools consistently for our Tu BiShvat programming. Thank you, Judi, for all you do!

A Letter from Tova Yemin

As a participant in last summer’s Educators Trip to Israel, I thank Jewish National Fund for this amazing mission!! I had the best time with all the mission participants, and I am so happy that I had the opportunity to make new friends and learn from the experience of like-minded professionals from around the world. This experience was meaningful, impressive, moving, educational and important. I am truly grateful to have had the opportunity to experience our beautiful Israel through the eyes of educators and the projects of JNF.

At Scheck Hillel we continued our friendship and we did a few projects that are related to Israel and JNF. Here are just a few:

• We held a seminar for our team to share the materials and ideas.
• We created a seven species garden, in which students from different grades were involved. We actually planted the Shivat Haminim.
• On Tu Bishvat we had three activities for 3rd-5th grades students. There were three groups that rotated from the IsraChute to the Israel map to another game. In each station the students learned about Israel from a different point of view.
• Our PK4 teachers had a PBL project about the Box.
• On Tu BiShvat we had a beautiful turnout of planting trees by many students.
• And soon, our Hebrew/Judaic team will dress up in a variety of the Israeli innovations (we were very impressed by the session in Natzerat).

I highly recommend that my colleagues participate this summer.

Yashar Koach for all that you do!

Thank You!

Tova Yemin

Lower School Hebrew Coordinator

Scheck Hillel Community School

N. Miami Beach, FL