Makom Community NEWS
Using the Pesach Story as a Vehicle for Empathy
The story of the Exodus from Egypt is dramatic. At various points in the narrative, there are babies sent down the Nile in baskets, a plethora of frogs (here, there, jumping everywhere!), and pillars of fire raining down from the sky. At my family seders, we like to tell the Pesach story with campy props, like sunglasses to represent the…
Training Jewish Educators: A New Residency Program at Makom Community
The Jewish communal field writes, talks, and often asks, “How do we innovate to meet the moment?” As a startup, Makom Community is often seen as innovative. We launched a human-centered independent Jewish afterschool program 11 years ago. Over the last 5 years, we have supported Jewish educators across the country with our consulting branch, Makom Making. There are aspects…
Camp: A Place for Joyful Jewish Learning
Picture the scene: it’s about 10 am on the brisk, sunny last Friday of winter break, and sunlight is streaming in through the windows of our gathering space, illuminating a group of fifteen kids aged four through twelve sitting in a circle on the rainbow rug. In the crowd, there is a tiger, a Spiderman, one middle-schooler dressed in vintage…
A Letter from our Executive Director & Founder
Beverly Socher-Lerner
Dear Families and Jewish Educators,
Thank you for visiting Makom Community online! We are a makom (place) where kiddos and their families experience a joyful community that embraces them and their whole family for exactly who they are! We envision a future where Jewish Education is joyful and accessible for all who want to partake. In Jewish tradition, a makom is the kind of place where someone grows into who they CAN be. We hope our makom will be that kind of place for your whole family.
You can expect warm, personal, and playful experiences for your child or grandchild at Makom Community. Makom Community is a living laboratory for a new model of Jewish Education. We strive to create high-quality experiences for urban families who are on a shared adventure that prioritizes empathy and connection in a durable way and brings Jewish learning into our lives.
At Makom Community, our educators are guided by our unique pedagogy, Jewish Placemaking. Jewish Placemaking encourages learners to ask mind-boggling questions, co-create an environment with their educators and friends that invites questions and meaning-making from Jewish wisdom, and welcomes families as interpreters of Jewish wisdom, regardless of the way they came to be a part of the Jewish community. Our learning is focused on the social-emotional skills our tradition teaches, which we live each day in our community.
Our work is not limited within the space of our Lab School and family-centered community. We are constantly researching, enhancing, and expanding tools to support our pedagogy. We then take these lessons and provide professional development and support to educators across the country who are also doing the holy work of adding children and their families’ voices to generations of Torah. We call this Makom Making.
We warmly invite you to explore all that Makom has to offer and we look forward to forming relationships with you that will help shape Makom Community for years to come!
Warmly,
Beverly