More than 1,700 Jewish educators from 20 countries gathered in Israel this week for the 21st annual Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education.
This year’s meeting, which is sponsored by the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization, focuses on the importance of Jerusalem and the Land of Israel in Jewish prayer, history and contemporary life.
In addition to attending workshops and lectures at the Hebrew University’s Mt. Scopus campus, participants are exploring the country via an assortment of educational tours.
Tours include “Jewish Herstory,” during which the steps of Deborah, Yael and other “women of valor” are retraced.
Conference Chairman Seymour Rossel, who noted that the gathering is the most ambitious in the history of Jewish education, said in an interview, “We’re here to create the agenda for Jewish education in the 21st century, nothing less. If these educators can’t do it, and they’re the best, no one can.”
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