Rimon Youth Education
Congregation Beth Israel is pleased to announce the Rimon Jewish Educational offerings for children grades K-7, available to both members and non members free of cost.
The first Rimon offering of the year will be Youth High Holiday services for children in grades K-6 that will take place from 10:00-12:00 on both days of Rosh HaShanah and on Yom Kippur In addition, beginning the first day of Sukkot 9/30, we will holding a weekly Shabbat morning Drop-In program for child in grades K-6 who finds themselves at BI on any Shabbat morning. The program will include songs and prayers, stories, drama, games and weekly Parsha discussion and debate.
It is with great excitement that we welcome our highly esteemed Deborah Fruchtman, who will be directing the Shabbat morning Rimon Drop-In program. Debbie is a past BI Religious School Director and current Agudat Achim Religious School Director and JFCM’s community-wide Torathon Coordinator. She brings many years of Jewish educational experience and a genuine love for Jewish learning and for children.
Debbie will be mentoring Clark University sophomore and Resident Advisor Shoshana Hirschman. The very engaging and energetic Shoshana comes to us with many years of experience at her home congregation in New York City - Beit Simchat Torah. There she assisted in elementary school classes every Saturday morning and supported students in learning to read Hebrew. Shoshana was also a counselor in the Jewish overnight Camp Havaya and worked as a Teacher’s assistant in her alma mater, the NYC iSchool. Debbie will be leading the Shabbat morning program once monthly and Shoshana twice monthly.
In collaboration with Congregation Agudat Achim in Leominster, we are pleased to offer two additional educational opportunities to BI students in grades K-7. The first is the invitation to enroll, tuition free, in the Sunday Religious School at Agudat Achim. The school offers a well-rounded Jewish education with classes in Hebrew, prayer, Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), holidays, history, ethics, Israel, and life cycle. They embrace children of all learning styles and work to build strong Jewish identity in their students.
The second opportunity in collaboration with Agudat Achim are individualized 30-minute weekly live Zoom Hebrew language classes. The trained local Zoom tutors use Mitkadem - published by Behrman House. It is a self-paced online Hebrew prayer and ritual program designed to empower every child to learn to read and understand Hebrew regardless of background and language learning skills. It consists of 23 levels that introduce grammar, vocabulary and reading. The teacher-led, virtual lessons allow each student engage with the material at his or her own level and pace.
Finally, Congregation Beth Israel is able to recommend several excellent private tutors in the community who can work with your child on a variety of Judaic skills. Please see the attached flyer for more information and be in touch with the BI office if you’d like to speak with Reena Slovin (VP Education), Rabbi Fellman or Debbie Fruchtman.
Rimon is generously supported by the Darvish Family Fund.