This is an addendum to A View from the American Guild of Judaic Art’s Mentor Program, Flora Rosefsky's post about mentoring in the American Guild of Judaic Art program. For background, the American Guild of Judaic Art's started a Judaic Visual Arts On-Line Mentoring Program. The program is open to students in grades 7-12. Flora Rosefsky spoke about m ...
Torah Stitch by Stitch project
The Torah Stitch by Stitch project is not strictly a project geared towards children, however it is one that children can participate in, and would be an interesting project for a group as a bar/bat mitzvah project. Created by artist, Temma Gentles, it is intended for people who want to experience "the purpose, rigor, and spirit of producing the holy te ...
A View from the American Guild of Judaic Art’s Mentor Program by Flora Rosefsky
Remember the American Guild of Judaic Art’s Mentor Program I posted about a while back? Today we have a guest post from Flora Rosefsky, a mentor in the program. I've long admired Flora's work so I'm excited to have her perspective in the Mitzvot Unplugged series. Her work is fun and vibrant, as you can see from the works included in this post. Fl ...
Creative Purim Bar Mitzvah Invitation
We received this cute Purim Bar Mitzvah invitation and I got permission to share it here: I laughed when I opened it up. Loved the idea of using a mirror to reflect the text for "Venahafoch Hu." Don't forget that we have Purim bencher covers for family smachot.
The Irena Sendler Project: Impacting the Community
In honor of Character Counts Week, here is a guest post by Laurie Rappeport about the Irena Sendler Project that both is an example of the piller of citizenship as well as an example of the type of project bnai mitzvah could do. In the Jewish World celebrating Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs often involves encouraging a young person to accept a new res ...
Building Character Resources
Character Counts Week begins October 20th. Building character is something we tend to agonize about in our family (are we modeling appropriate behaviours? do our kids understand our values and have they internalized them? are they being mentchen when we are not around? are they interacting with their friends in appropriate manners? are we putting them i ...
Using Papercuts to Teach Values
We are happy to welcome artist Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik as part of the Mitzvot Unplugged Series. Isaac uses innovative materials in his paper-cuts (I encourage you to take a look at them.) He will be talking about the workshops (which he teaches to students young and old.) 1. How do you relay Jewish values in a creative way? Relaying ...
Teaching the mitzva of “respecting the elderly”
We are happy to have gerontologist, Rakel Berenbaum, as part of our Mitzvot Unplugged series, writing about a creative program which both teaches the value of Chesed and of valuing our elders. "It is very fulfilling to give. When you give, you get something too." Meira, Bat Mitzvah program participant Melabev Beit Shemesh has created two unique pr ...
Kol HaOt – Illuminating Jewish Life through Art
We are happy to have a guest post from Kol Haot as part of the Mitzvot Unplugged Series. A fuller version of this post appeared in the Lookstein Journal Jewish Educational Leadership: The Arts in Jewish Education A short note, although i have never participated in the series, many years ago I visited David Moss's Jerusalem studio with my parents and my ...
100 Acts of Chesed- A community birthday present
I had to share this idea organized by my cousin Shmuel, rabbi of Congregation Ohev Shalom, and his shul. In honor of the 100 birthday of one of his congregants, Anna Yuter, the synagogue organized a "drive" in January. What was unusual about the drive was it asked members to do an act of chesed or kindness. The synagogue then collected the acts into a b ...