“A discourse of identities in Jewish-Israeli Culture” – Training for School Principals, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Shitim Institute and Bina

A two year continued education opportunity for school principals, intended to enrich their knowledge of Jewish-Israeli Culture, and providing a group setting to explore queries into personal identity and school identity in the sphere of Jewish-Israeli culture.

In their role as school leaders, principals are required to engage with the questions of what does Jewish culture at the school mean, and how to encourage its expression. These sessions provide a theoretical and practical foundation to explore fundamental questions touching on Israeli society ethos, and to develop a personal opinion based on learning and discussion, in order to contribute to processes of identity exploration and identity formation at the school.

The training also focuses on the topic of Jewish peoplehood, aiming to provide both a broad and an Israeli-specific context, to encourage connections with Jewish communities in the diaspora, develop a mutual dialogue which such communities based on openness and curiosity, and to strengthen the sense of responsibility principles have to projects relating to Jewish peoplehood and the diaspora (the Jewish Agency’s school twinning project, etc.).

These sessions incorporate group study and processing by the principals forum, and the program includes talks by intellectual thinkers, academics and cultural figures as well as experiential and educational excursions, all relevant to the topics of identity discussed in the program. Among the excursions, a visit to the Tel Aviv Museum for an artistic gaze at Jewish culture as a periphery to Israeli culture, or a visit to Bialik House for a discussion on the tension between tradition and renewal as a value-based dilemma in Jewish culture.