Our Approach to Jewish Education
Simchat Diaspora’s approach to Jewish education is rooted in connection to Jewish cultures and traditions, relationships with our neighbors and the land, and commitment to accessibility.
We embrace Simcha, joy that does not deny the heartbreaking complexity of the world.
We have so much to learn from our kids, from kids everywhere, about an embrace of joy that is punctuated by tears, of deep wisdom that emerges from silliness, of how to make community and connection wherever we find ourselves. Our lessons and coaching are buoyed by the Jewish tradition of honoring simcha in its fullness, and we turn to young people as expert guides in embracing this type of joy.
We embrace diaspora as our spiritual and political home.
Diaspora refers to the dispersion of Jews throughout the world / outside of Judaism’s biblical center, Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel. The embrace of diaspora as our home is not new in Jewish thought. But for the last one hundred years, embrace of diaspora has become an increasingly radical act, because it stands up to the idea that safety, home, and Jewish culture are synonymous with the state of Israel. Embracing diaspora can also encourage us to learn the histories of the lands on which we do live, to embrace the many overlapping cultures of Jews around the world, and to share the responsibility of caring for our local communities.
Play is the language our children speak best. Play is how children process their experiences and communicate their ideas. It is how they write their first stories and begin to contribute to our communal narratives. Following our children in play gives us an opportunity to set aside our adult inhibitions, judgements, and seriousness. Play is also not politically neutral. In our communities, we have unequal access to time and mental energy for play, and to consistently safe places for outdoor play. The same might be said about Jewish practice; but if we limit ourselves to when conditions are perfect, we might miss out on experiencing it at all. By making room for play and for playful tradition, we build multigenerational learning communities where we connect deeply and take the wisdom our children have to offer seriously.
We invite everyone to play.
We have tough conversations and we “look for the helpers.”
Fred Rogers offers a powerful teaching about how we as caregivers can validate and respond to kids when facing a scary situation. Quoting his own mother, he reminds us to “look for the helpers.” Our children overhear our conversations, catch snippets of news, look over our shoulders as we scroll social media, and hear political opinions from their teachers, friends, and relatives. For nonwhite and multiracial Jewish families “tough talks” about racialized experiences within and outside of Jewish community aren’t optional. We believe that all Jews should have tools with which to interrogate the ways that racism and white supremacy operate in Jewish communities and the world and learn to stand up to racism as part of Jewish learning. It is our goal that our resources provide you with ideas for how to open conversation about challenging parts of life, how to validate kids’ feelings about them, and to offer glimpses of hope about how we might respond together when life is hard. That’s why we often highlight “the helpers,” and include ways that people of all ages can help.
We make authentic, rigorous exploration of Jewish religious and cultural life approachable and accessible.
We believe that whether or not we are fully immersed in Jewish community, we can integrate Jewish traditions into our practical lives alongside our children. Through our programs, we build Jewish adults’ capacity to articulate how our lived experiences of parenting, of choosing to live in diverse communities, and of expressing solidarity and living our values are not separate from Jewish expression and practice. We teach Torah, Jewish folktales, and foundational texts as living traditions that can be explored, questioned, challenged, and expanded upon, and we offer ritual guides that introduce and invite intergenerational participation in traditional communal and home-based Jewish practices. Our approach uses Universal Design for Learning and expands that to Judaics: our hope is that there is an inroad for everyone, whether you are learning these traditions for the first time alongside the children in your life, or you are unlearning and relearning a values-aligned tradition that will resonate with generations to come.
We treat families as sites of power, transformation, and change.
Simchat Diaspora empowers kids and their caregivers to embrace their potential to be driving forces behind growing powerful, joyful, and sustainable Jewish communities. This is in opposition to the tendency for families, caregivers and kids to be overlooked in our immediate vision of where “the work” of community and movement building is located.