Student Teachers and U.S. Jewish Youths Sail for Israel Studies

A group of 24 undergraduates from Hebrew teachers colleges in New York, Boston and Chicago sailed today aboard the S.S. Israel for a six-month training seminar in Israel sponsored by the Jewish Agency.

Another group of 37 members of Zionist and other Jewish youth organizations in the United States and Canada sailed for a year-long program of leadership training, sponsored by the Jewish Agency. The leadership program, conducted by the Jewish Agency’s Youth Department, is designed to train young Americans for group leadership at home.

B’nai B’rith Youth Organization; Betar; Hanar Hazioni; Hashmore Hatzair; Hechalutz Hazioni; Mizrachi Hatzair; Student Zionist Organization; Young Judea and Candian Young Judea; the Jewish Institute of Religion, representing Reform temple youth; the Leadership Training Fellowship, United Synagogue Youth and Young Peoples League, representing Conservative synagogue youth, B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation of Canada; and the Zionist Organization of America are represented in this year’s contingent.

The student-teacher group represents the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the Hebrew Teachers Institutes for men and women of Yeshiva University and the Herzliah Teachers Institute, all of New York; the Hebrew Teachers College of Boston and the College of Jewish Studies, Chicago. The seminar, now in its sixth year, is an annual project of the Jewish Agency’s Department of Education and Culture.

The students, selected for the seminar on the basis of their academic recorded, will take courses which correspond to the curricular that would normally be followed in the first semester of their graduating year at home. This includes Bible, Talmud, Hebrew language and literature, education, Jewish history and the history of modern Israel. The courses are conducted entirely in the Hebrew language.