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Our Religious School is led by Interim Religious School Director Terri Bernsohn (tbernsohn@jrc-evanston.org). Terri works closely with JRC's spiritual leaders and the lay leadership of an active Religious School Committee. Serving members ages 3 – 18, our programs begin with Jewish enrichment classes and continue through high school with Communiteen.

In all grades, parents are active participants in our school, either in classrooms alongside their children or during parallel parent education programs that meet during school hours. At JRC, Reconstuctionist Jewish education is based on Torah, Avodah, and Gmilut Chassidim--renewing Torah in each generation, crafting creative and diverse worship experiences (avodah), and participating in the holy work of repairing our world (tikkun olam/gmilut chassidim). Lifecycle events and holidays are woven throughout.

Torah, broadly conceived as those texts that our people have chosen as keys to our identity over time, is a subject to which our students return in a developmental spiral of increasing complexity. Even our youngest students learn that Torah is a living tradition.

We explore Torah as it evolved through the history of a people wrestling with living life in two civilizations (Jewish and the reigning secular civilization). Our students use hands-on projects, fieldtrips, Internet research, plays, historical diaries, and many other venues to experience the panorama of the evolution of our Torah tradition and religious civilization.

Avodah at JRC is about text--siddur--but also about so much more! All of our students, from pre-school through 6th grade, worship weekly with Rabbi Brant Rosen and Cantor Howard Friedland. In our primary department, students grow their own siddurim, discussing each of the prayers with their teachers and parents. Our 3rd through 6th graders both work on mastery of essential prayers, and explore alternative modes of avodah through workshops taught by volunteers eager to share their personal approach to avodah--through yoga, meditation, movement, and more. In 6th grade, students explore comparative Judaism, including looking at the many variations on the siddur which exist today. Our Hebrew curriculum is siddur-based, teaching vocabulary essential to understanding key tfillot/prayers.

Gmilut Chassidim/acts of loving kindness, are the third pillar of our curriculum, and are woven into the fabric of our students' learning. Each grade sustains a yearlong commitment to a core Jewish value by partnering with a local, national or international agency and participating in hands-on activities. This year, for instance, students will create housewarming baskets for formerly homeless individuals moving into a new residence. Our youngest students will partner with a local humane society to provide supplies for shelter animals. Second graders learn about hunger and spend a day working at the Chicago Food Depository. Fourth graders will develop relationships with elderly members of our congregation and local agencies. Our 7th grade students participate in Jewish Council on Urban Affairs’ Urban Poverty program and visit a Chicago area shelter. This coming year, our sixth graders will take a global look at social action in a pilot program with the American Jewish World Service.

We begin to prepare our students to move into their roles as Jewish adults in 6th grade, with the establishment of their b'nai mitzvah portfolios. Through the next two years, students and their parents look at their Torah and haftarah portions through many lenses: with the eyes of medieval sages, Maimonides and Rashi; as learning texts for tikkun olam; as triggers for artistic productions of every sort.

In 7th grade, JRC students move through a series of mini-units on such varied themes as mitzvot, ecology and Judaism, or the place of Jews with special needs within the Jewish community. Beyond b'nai mitzvah, JRC offers students an increasing number of options for high school, all under the umbrella of Midrasha, the high school program in which we cooperate with two neighboring synagogues.

In the end, JRC is a community, and our school reflects its diversity. Continuing this year will be our monthly Sunday morning Beit Cafe featuring coffee, community and adult learning.