New online lesson plans, mini-courses, and experiential connections will help religious schools focus attention on Israel’s diversity, humanity, creativity, and innovative spirit
“An exciting array of possibilities for introducing students to Israel in unique ways”
ISRAEL21c and Behrman House today announced an agreement to adapt selected ISAREL21c content for use in Jewish religious schools and make it available through the Behrman House Online Learning Center and Resource Libraries.
As a result, educators will have a variety of new resources for crafting experiences that help students develop lifelong ties to Israel. The first of these will become available in the fall of 2012 for use this coming school year.
“We are delighted to work with an organization of the high caliber of ISRAEL21c and to have the opportunity to create a new approach to Israel education and affinity for students in North America and elsewhere,” said David Behrman, President of Behrman House. “We envision an exciting array of possibilities for introducing students to Israel in unique ways, including instant lessons featuring ISRAEL21c articles and videos, multimedia mini-modules that an educator can implement during several class periods, and fully developed, turn-key digital curricula that include apps and interactive, experiential online Israel connections.”
“With these new tools we look forward to a new generation who gain an attachment to and love for Israel at an early age” said Amy Friedkin, President of ISRAEL21c.
“This has been a very satisfying process with devoted and creative partners who deeply believe in Israel education being presented in better and new ways,” said Pearl Lerner Kane of PLK Consulting Group and consultant to ISRAEL21c.
The first materials under this agreement will be a series of downloadable “instant” lesson plans that feature step-by-step instructions for using multimedia materials from ISRAEL21c. Educators will be able to engage students in a variety of Israel-related subjects at a moment’s notice without a lot of advance preparation. Lessons and media will be available for direct use inside Behrman House’s new Online Learning Center, where students can find and use the materials easily, comment and share their ideas with others in their class, their group, or even at home with their families.
Also available for this fall will be a series of seven mini-modules of three lessons each, focusing on specific subjects. Each lesson will feature materials from ISRAEL21c together with goals for each lesson and module, guiding questions, instructions for projects and experiential Israel encounters, as well as reflection opportunities and thought questions necessary for helping students process new information into genuine connections.
Behrman House—now in its 92nd year—is the leading North American publisher of textbooks and digital learning materials for the Jewish religious school, and has published works by Abba Eban, Lucy Dawidowicz, Rabbi Milton Steinberg, Rabbi David Wolpe, and Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson. The company recently introduced its Online Learning Center, which will allow educators to create Jewish learning communities that are unconstrained by geography or time and will provide direct access to multimedia materials in Hebrew and Judaics to support them.
Behrman House’s digital materials are helping tens of thousands of students explore Hebrew and Judaism in the same way they are exploring their secular world—by engaging both online and face-to-face in adventurous learning experiences that let them use the technology they have grown up with to become self-motivated learners.
ISRAEL21c, celebrating its tenth anniversary as an educational foundation, is an online information service that offers the single most diverse and reliable source of news and information about 21st century Israel to be found anywhere. It is a vast resource of thousands of originally written and produced articles, videos, and blogs by some of Israel’s leading journalists. Free from bias or prejudice, ISRAEL21c is a uniquely apolitical nonprofit organization.
ISRAEL21c posts content daily, and through a weekly newsletter that reaches more than 50,000 subscribers each week and millions of page views each month.
ISRAEL21c offers topical and timely reports on Israelis from all walks of life. The organization’s articles and videos, all originally researched, written, and produced show how Israeli efforts have contributed incalculably to the advancement of health-care, environment, technology, culture, and global democratic values worldwide.
In doing so ISRAEL21c redefines the conversation about Israel and focuses media and public attention on Israel’s vibrant diversity, humanity, creativity, innovative spirit, and responsiveness.
ISRAEL21c’s YouTube channel is the all-time number one most subscribed nonprofit channel from Israel, and the all-time number one most viewed nonprofit channel in Israel.
The organization is headquartered in Israel and San Francisco and is jointly led by professional staff under Editor-in-Chief, Nicky Blackburn, and a dedicated board of directors, under President Amy Friedkin.
