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Israel's fastest growing adult Jewish learning pluralist network |
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Leading Israeli Social Researcher: Gandel Institute Playing a Significant Role |
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Dr. Ezra Kopelowitz, Director of CEO Research Success Technologies, a leading Israeli research company, believes that the Gandel Institute for Adult Jewish Learning is making a significant contribution to the field of adult Jewish learning in Israel. Currently at over 400 students, with a 30% annual growth rate, Gandel is involving Jewish Israelis in serious text study on a weekly basis. Many of the participants would not be otherwise engaged in Jewish learning.
Kopelowitz has conducted extensive research into the growing phenomenon of Secular Israelis reclaiming their heritage and is a recognized expert in this field. He says that Jewish education aimed at secular Israeli adults has been percolating over the past 20 years, with more and more learning opportunities opening up for a population eager to enrich their Jewish knowledge. With the strengthening presence of the ultra-Orthodox and religious fundamentalist factions in Israeli society and the weakening of the main-stream Zionist movements, many secular Israelis are feeling increasingly unsettled with the quality of their "Jewish life" in Israel. Whereas, once affiliation with a Zionist movement, celebration of national holidays and army service sufficed as the basis for their Jewish identity, today increasing numbers are looking for more intensive and meaningful Jewish involvements that touch on their daily lives.
In response to this new trend, pluralistic Jewish learning frameworks have multiplied over the past two decades. The most prominent examples are the growth of Jewish education in schools. Networks like TALI, Meitarim and ORT Israel are introducing Jewish studies into their schools and reaching tens of thousands of children. However opportunities for adult Jewish learning remain relatively few and are concentrated in a number of Centers. | |
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Gandel Institute Study Groups:
Afula, Arad, Aza Region, Beersheba, Beit Kama, Beit Shemesh, Emek Hefer, Givat Brenner, Hadera, Hod Hasharon, Hod Hasharon, Karmiel Kfar Shamai, Kfar Vradim, Kiryat Haim area, Kiryat Tivon, Menashe Region, Modi'in, Naharia, Omer, Rehovot, Rishon LeZion, Rosh Pina, Tzfat,Yavne, Yesod HaMaalah
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The Gandel Institute's innovation is the model of adult learning without walls. Gandel brings the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to serious learners in close to 30 communities around the country from Yesod HaMaala in the northern Galilee down to Sderot, Beer Sheva and Arad in the South. The courses are easily accessible and reduce the barriers involved in the time and cost required to learn. The Gandel approach also builds on social networks. Friends bring friends, and in many cases the learning occurs within an already existing group, such as a synagogue community. The result is that the learning spills over, extending beyond the classroom and into conversations between friends and among members of a synagogue when they make decisions about the Jewish character of their community.
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Karmiel Mayor, Mr Adi Eldar, Participates in Gandel Study Sessions |
 Mr Adi Eldar on his recent visit to the Gandel School in Karmiel, first met the Russian-speaking group studying the "Circles of Kinship" course, and joined in the lesson dealing with the question of kings and kingdom.
He then visited the 3rd year class studying Jewish Ethics, and heard how the ideas that were discussed in class were to be practiced in the participants' real life. There was a visitor present from Tel Aviv, who complained that there is more going on in Karmiel in terms of quality Jewish learning than in Tel Aviv. Tsafy Simons, National Coordinator, invited her to join the new class which is about to open in Tel Aviv.
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| Annual Gandel Shabbaton |
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A hundred Gandel students took every available room of the Ruth Daniel Retreat Center in Jaffa for this intensive learning experience. Students came from as far north as Naharia and as far south as Arad and the area surrounding the Gaza Strip.
An important aspect of the Shabbaton was the high level of intellectual curiosity and openness to learning. All the presenters were Gandel teachers and one could feel the sense of exhilaration among the teachers with each session packed to capacity.
A highlight of the Shabbat was the 'Tish' on Friday evening which was devoted to 100 years of Tel Aviv, a fitting theme given the locale of the Shabbaton . Our national Gandel Coordinator Tsafy Simons prepared a moving evening of narration and song that marked the history of Tel Aviv. Many students who are either current Tel Aviv residents or past residents reminisced about their own personal experiences of growing up in this Israeli metropolis.
The Shabbat ended on a high note as three participants described the impact of Gandel learning on their personal lives. One participant of the Gandel post-grad course in Karmiel described how her son studies in Melton in Toronto and now she too has the privilege of the Melton experience in Karmiel.
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Seeking Custody of My Jewish Heritage
[Natan Ronen, Yavne] |
 My wife Denise and I are in our second year of Gandel studies in Yavne. As a couple we come from very different backgrounds. Denise comes from a traditional family which observed the mitzvoth. She made aliya with an educated group, part of a youth movement in Morocco. I am a child of Holocaust survivors. Both my parents lost all their family. They were Holocaust refugees, broken and shattered who decided to marry and create a new family in order to show the world that it didn't succeed in destroying the Jewish people. Both parents came from Haredi families, lived in a small village in Poland and as a result of the tragedy lost all faith in God and exchanged it with a naïve belief in Communism. Supposedly it was a world of equality, a world without class and without religions. (After all according to Karl Marx religion is the opium of the masses.) When the communist regime in Poland began to "deal" with the Jews my parents gave up on their new religion and made aliya.
For many years I repressed the "Jewish subject". Like my parents I replaced it with being Israeli, a kind of mix between Zionism and nationalism, spiced with a renewed ethos of Israeli festivals in the land of Israel. Since the State of Israel does not separate between religion and State, and since the religious parties made politics an axe to dig with, and as they received exemption from army service, I viewed the Jewish religion as outdated, archaic, and static with signs of dirty politics.
The Gandel program was the first time I was introduced to the immense richness of the Jewish bookcase which I had given up on out of sheer ignorance. For the first time I feel ashamed that I had surrendered to the Haredim this rich treasure of my culture. I am now seeking custody for this treasure of the work of the generations which integrates religious contemplation, philosophy, with contemporary Jewish poetry and literature from around the world.
All that I have mentioned above I understood recently in a painful and personal way. When we were studying the chapter "Man and Nation - the individual and the community " our eldest son was in the US with his wife doing his post doctoral studies in nano technology at a prestigious university. My grandson was born in the US and was given the name Yuli. My son told us that they will perform his brit in the hospital. Suddenly I heard myself shout that he doesn't have permission to do so, not only do I not give him permission but also all the generations of the Jewish people before us.
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| Global Gandel Connections
[Tsafy Simons, National Coordinator] |
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 Three years ago a group of Florence Melton Adult Mini-School students on an Israel seminar came to the city of Karmiel to meet with Gandel students and to hear the stories of new immigrants who made aliya to the Galilee. They met with Tsafy Simons, the coordinator for Karmiel at the time (and currently the National Coordinator for Gandel) and four students who made aliya from South Africa, London and Mexico.
Two years later, in the spring of 2007, another Melton group visited our study group in Karmiel. One of the visitors, from Melton in Australia, told the students about her daughter, Jackie, who had recently made aliyah to Israel and intended to settle in Karmiel.
She wanted to get information for her daughter but Tsafy suggested that her daughter make direct contact with her. As a result Jackie visited Tsafy and David Simons' home as a guest for Shavuot and immediately found herself a part of the family, so much so that she moved in for a couple of months and became their fourth child.
It didn't take Tsafy long to get Jackie interested in Gandel studies and this year Jackie has joined the graduate class of Gandel in Karmiel and is currently studying Talmud.
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Homeland: Studying in Modi'in
[Michal Yaniv, Faculty, Modi'in Study Group] |
 Homeland - how much yearning and longing are concealed in this word. As we sit around the table at Kehillat Yozma in Modi'in, with the Jewish bookcase next to us and in front of us our students readers, this yearning that we feel is surely for the Homeland we left (or our parents left) for the good in another Homeland or is it nostalgia about our childhood? And what does this confusion that we feel mean when we are asked what is the Homeland of the Jewish People? And what is between the Homeland of a nation and one's personal homeland? It is as if many different emotions arise within us because of the tension between the two, a tension that is entwined in the history of the Jewish People from that very "Lech Lecha" of Abraham until this day.
Personal stories of different Homelands are found in the texts studied: childhood memories from Iraq and Ukraine, from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv - landscapes, smells, tastes all join to form a common chevruta and enrich our sources. And these sources are received with love and add to the personal and group experience of each and every one of us, and deepen the meaning of the generations that deliberated, suffered and rejoiced in their Homeland.
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Yaki Beja, Modi'in: We had two interesting and erudite facilitators with so much knowledge who enriched my knowledge of the Jewish bookcase as well as contemporary Jewish culture. Studying in a group was fruitful and provided a pleasant learning environment. This project is crucial for bringing the secular population (in Israel) closer to the cultural heritage of the Jewish people and to strengthening Jewish identity.
Harley Stark, Beit Shemesh: For myself, this series of meetings is first and foremost about communication. In Israel we have a habit of talking at each other and not talking to each other. The Gandel course enables us to talk to and listen to Jews from different backgrounds with different opinions and exchange points of view and reflect upon our common heritage and realise that there "is no right answer.
Roni Ankori, Beit Shemesh: I grew up in a secular home and environment and was thrilled to have the opportunity to study Judaism in a pluralistic atmosphere, accepting of all opinions. At each meeting I learn something new, it enriches my world, brings into focus things connected to my past, sharpens the essence of who I am as a Jew, and widens my horizons. Each week I look forward to Thursday.
Ruth Keidar, Kibbutz Givat Brenner: My father was a Talmud teacher yet I was brought up on Kibbutz, which was as far as possible from anything that slightly resembles religion or Judaism. My studies at Gandel enable me to close a circle in my personal life. It is a shame my father is not around but I am sure wherever he is he knows I am studying and is very proud of me.
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