Creating New Horizons
“Every serious-minded person within the Jewish community has to ask, ‘How can I ensure its survival and its future?”
July 22, 2014
Since graduating from Touro in 2002, Graduate School of Jewish Studies alumnus Rabbi Eliezer Rubin has become Head of School at Livingston, NJ’s co-educational Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy and Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School. His interdisciplinary, philosophically pluralistic approach bridges Orthodox teachings and secular American ideals, in the hopes of sending well-rounded students into the world. Or, as Rubin puts it himself, “I’m very excited about helping children discover themselves while they connect to Jewish values.”
RABBI ELIEZER RUBIN: Every serious-minded person within the Jewish community has to ask, how can I ensure its survival and its future? Jewish day schools have to ask that question, because we are creating new horizons in every generation.
My hope for our students is that they see the beauty and the depth and the sophistication of Judaism. I'm very excited about helping children discover themselves, while they connect and engage to Jewish values and to our people. Each child and each person is different.
We therefore, need to create different portals, different opportunities, different windows of engagement, so students who go through this school could connect with Judaism in a way that is meaningful to him or her. So we can no longer think about our curriculum as a rollover, conveyor belt, pass along, kick the ball down the road curriculum.
It has to be innovative enough to adapt to some of the changes that are taking place in a broader society. If we can create students that graduate from day school, a persona that they're going to engage the world around them, at the same time project an inner goodness, which is driven and informed by the best core values of Judaism, we have been successful in our mission. They have so much goodness that lies ahead of them.
My hope for our students is that they see the beauty and the depth and the sophistication of Judaism. I'm very excited about helping children discover themselves, while they connect and engage to Jewish values and to our people. Each child and each person is different.
We therefore, need to create different portals, different opportunities, different windows of engagement, so students who go through this school could connect with Judaism in a way that is meaningful to him or her. So we can no longer think about our curriculum as a rollover, conveyor belt, pass along, kick the ball down the road curriculum.
It has to be innovative enough to adapt to some of the changes that are taking place in a broader society. If we can create students that graduate from day school, a persona that they're going to engage the world around them, at the same time project an inner goodness, which is driven and informed by the best core values of Judaism, we have been successful in our mission. They have so much goodness that lies ahead of them.
