This week, I asked Yael Hoffman to share some thoughts about the Jewish Enrichment Center. Yael has two sons (Yoni, 3; Ezra, 1), and is connected both with Akiba-Schechter Jewish Day School and the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. Yael is a long-time Hyde Parker and her family belongs to Congregation Rodfei Zedek.
From Guest Blogger Yael Hoffman:
Why send your kids to the Jewish Enrichment Center next fall?
Here’s why I’m doing it.
Jewish education for my kids is important to me. I want my kids to know our holidays, our prayers, our culture, and our history. I want them to experience all of these. And I want my kids to come to feel that these aspects of their Jewishness are part of the very fabric of their beings.
But even more, I want them to be part of a vibrant Jewish community. We are already lucky to be part of Hyde Park’s wonderful community of young Jewish families, and this is where Hyde Park’s Jewish kids will be after school–at the Jewish Enrichment Center. This is where their learning experience will be rounded out–where their home observances and participation in synagogue life will begin to synthesize. With friends. And fun.
At the Jewish Enrichment Center, our kids will absorb their Jewishness through music, dance, games, cooking, arts and crafts, and other activities. They’ll learn about Judaism through experiences of touching, moving, listening, seeing and hearing. They’ll explore it and they’ll choose how they want to express it.
How great does that sound?
