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January 12, 2001/Tevet 17, 5761, Vol. 53, No.15
Adults return to high school in Israel
BARRY COHEN
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By contrast, Jewish education is ongoing and extends over a lifetime.
The Alexander Muss High School in Israel program offers continuing Jewish education for younger and older students alike.
Year round, high school students, ages 16-18, study on the Muss campus in Hod Ha'Sharon, a suburb of Tel Aviv, for eight-week sessions. Adults, based in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Tiberias, learn in abridged two-week sessions modeled on the high school curricula.
"It was absolutely incredible," says Barbara Kirschner of Phoenix, who participated in an AMHSI adult session with her husband, Howard, from late October through early November.
"The high point was just being there," says Avajoy Rosenberg of Paradise Valley, who attended the same course. "I enjoyed being in the program to get the historical, chronological perspective of (Jewish) history."
After the high school program began in 1972, relatives of students saw the quality of the experience and also wanted to participate, says JoAnn Goldberger, AMHSI national director of operations, based in Miami.
In 1986, "we developed (for adults) a taste of what the kids have," says Goldberger. Teachers distilled the eight-week curriculum to two weeks, but adults study and learn in the same way as the high-school students. The main difference, she adds, is that adults "get to stay in five-star hotels, and there are no tests."
The goal for both programs is to teach the history of Israel in strict chronological order and to place students experientially into history. Classes begin with pre-Canaanite history and end with the current unrest between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
"They are rather fanatical," says Rosenberg. If the group was physically near a historical site but distant from the era of history being studied at that time, the teachers would not acknowledge the location, she explains.
Rosenberg says the technique helped her grasp the millennia of history in Israel. The nation's depth and breadth of history can be overwhelming, she says, if not conveyed distinctly and coherently.
Another feature of the AMHSI approach is to use the traditional classroom - with lectern, blackboard and desks - only to frame history. The real classroom exists beyond the lecture room, and teachers utilize it in an empirical way.
Kirschner says she learned about Masada at Masada, sitting in the room where the Zealots supposedly deliberated about taking their own lives rather than surrender to the Roman armies in 73 C.E.
She says she now understands the expanse of time Jews have lived in Israel, in part because of a day spent on an archaeological dig.
"It was one of the best days we had," she says. "I found what must have been part of a decorated, ornate bowl, hundreds of years old."
In addition, adult group members toured Israel, rode camels in the Negev, saw bunkers in the Golan conquered during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and visited the area near the Lebanon border where three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped Oct. 7.
The adult sessions usually include 36 students divided into two classes, says Goldberger, to encourage as much bonding as possible. Teachers lecture in English to participants from a number of English-speaking nations, including the United States, Great Britain and South Africa.
At times, adult and high school students study together, Goldberger says. For one day, the adults tour the campus at Hod Ha'Sharon and observe a high school lecture. They also get together during a tiyul (tour) of a historical site.
Kirschner learned about the program first through her niece, who participated in 1998; Rosenberg sent her children to AMHSI for summer sessions in 1996 and 1999.
"It is a fabulous program for teenagers," says Rosenberg. "It matured them and got them ready for their senior year of high school and then college."
More than 250 high school students from the Valley have attended AMHSI programs since their inception, says Elaine Hirsch, director of admissions for AMHSI at the Bureau of Jewish Education.
The next adult session, Hirsch says, is May 30 - June 11. The $2,499 cost includes round trip airfare from Phoenix to Tel Aviv. It is sponsored by the BJE and the Israel office of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix. Contact Elaine Hirsch, 602-234-1645.
Learn more about the high school and adult programs offered by AMHSI at 11 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 28, at the home of Avajoy Rosenberg, 8711 N. 67th St., Paradise Valley. To attend, call Elaine Hirsch.
"I had such a feeling of pride in our people," says Kirschner of her experience, which showed her the wide spectrum of Israel's people and locations.
"I wanted to be a student in Israel," says Rosenberg. "I didn't want to be a tourist."