Earlier this spring, I spoke with Dr. Saul Wachs, who is now a member of our Advisory Board. He was excited about the new model for Jewish education that Makom Community brings to Philadelphia, and asked me to come and present at the final session of Gratz College’s doctoral seminar this spring. I was so honored to be asked, and greatly enjoyed presenting Makom Community’s model of Jewish Education to the thoughtful and diverse doctoral students, all of whom study various aspects of Jewish education while working in the field, too.
Thanks to video conferencing, I met with this cohort of doctoral students from around the world— educators from Baltimore, Florida, Philadelphia, Israel, California, and more. I told them about our journey so far—How I have shared coffee with interested parents and other stakeholders in our community, how our community is now celebrating Shabbat monthly with families from all over the city, and how our efforts are building toward a joyful learning community for families in Center City.
They were excited to hear about this new educational model, and had some astute questions. I’ll share a few of them here along with my answers.
Q: You mentioned that you’re working to be accessible to interfaith and LGBT families. How do you do that?
A: Though we make sure to create welcoming space and use language that communicates the same, modeling is the strongest way to show that we are a welcoming community. We model that we are LGBT-friendly when my wife and I stand at the door to greet families as they arrive. We model that we are interfaith friendly by creating opportunities for parents of all faiths are empowered to participate and interpret Judaism for their children (more about that below). When diverse families are among the founding families of a community, the welcoming environment is quickly knit into the fabric of our community.
Through modeling and setting up an environment where all the parents in the room are critical to the experience, we welcome parents from all faith backgrounds. At each Shabbat celebration, I stop and teach a Jewish concept at an adult level. Then, I ask the parents to interpret that idea for their own children. Each family discusses this new idea, and then we return to share some of our ideas and continue to welcome Shabbat. In this way, each of the parents discusses ideas and values with their own children. Parents from any faith tradition are empowered and encouraged to share their thoughts with their children. This serves two vital purposes for all our families:
1) Parents are empowered to interpret Jewish tradition in a way that is personally meaningful.
2) Parents are modeling for their own children the value of continuing to learn about Judaism and the process of meaning-making as that learning continues throughout our lifetimes.
Q: How have the synagogues in the area responded to this new addition to the Jewish education options in Center City?
A: I’m so glad you asked! I have worked from the outset to build relationships with all the synagogues in the area so we can think creatively about points of synergy and ways we can work together to build up the Center City Jewish community.
Families who come to Makom Community but are not already members of an area synagogue either have not yet seen a compelling reason to join a synagogue, or have decided that none of the synagogues in the area seemed like a good fit for them. These families may find their home at Makom Community when otherwise they might not have found any point of connection with the Jewish Community. Makom Community graduates our students at the end of 5th grade.
When children graduate Makom Community’s afterschool program, they have a strong foundation in Jewish knowledge and ideals, and are ready to begin Bar & Bat Mitzvah preparations. We then work with parents and local rabbis to find the right fit for each family to facilitate this exciting milestone. After getting to know a family over the course of months or years, we hope that we can help guide them toward a synagogue in the area that might be just the right place for them to connect.
Several Center City synagogues have Sunday-only religious school programs. Others have programs on a mid-week day. Families who are already members of a synagogue in the area may enroll their children in both the synagogue school and Makom Community’s afterschool program. And those will be some lucky kids!
Q: How is Makom Community planning to be financially sustainable?
A: Through careful budgeting and judicial use of resources, Makom Community’s strategic plan projects that by the third year of operation we will be almost entirely sustained by tuition alone. This is not because tuition is particularly high—our afterschool program and camps are priced competitively, with scholarships available. Rather this is a direct result of careful budgeting and increasing enrollment. As with any new organization however, Makom Community does have start-up costs that need to be raised, and we are pursuing that start-up funding through a combination of grants and individual donations.
These and other thoughtful and interesting questions sparked wonderful discussions about paralells in the doctoral student’s research and projects. I look forward to hearing more from the doctoral students at Gratz as their projects continue to unfold, and sharing more with them about our journey, too. Thank you, Dr. Saul Wachs, for inviting me to speak with them!