Scully and the Smartphone

Looking for an easier way to frame the complexities of your (or your students’) relationship to technology? Meet Scully – Rabbi Jeffrey Schein’s Granddoggy. In this short video graphic novella, Scully simplifies his own complex explorations into two questions we might ask ourselves about our own relationship to technology.

It’s Complicated: Scully and the SmartPhone is part of the Text Me project’s reflective pedagogy, designed both to engage the learner and to increase the self-awareness of the teacher on this broad topic, the latter goal being a key element to our most creative teaching.

You can also explore other reflective pedagogy tools and enriched curricular units here.

Webinar: New way to explore the hidden treasures of Shavuot

Dr Deborah and Rabbi Jeffrey Schein in a still from their Shavuot webinarCome explore the hidden treasures of Shavuot celebration with Rabbi Jeffrey and Dr. Deborah Schein in this engaging webinar, “Saving Shavuot, Counting the Omer, and Family Educator”.

The webinar, presented by The Mordechai M. Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood, explores Shavuot through the multiple intelligences model of Howard Gardner and Mordecai Kaplan’s innovative thinking about the extension of the Pesach seder into other realms.

 

August 28 and September 3, 2020, ONLINE

Sponsored by Hineini and TC Jewfolk, Twin Cities, MN

B’dibur Echad: A Jewish Celebration and Critique of Technology in Light of COVID-19

  • This program is a dialogue geared to help you think about your relationship with technology as we approach a Jewish New Year.
  • Open to learners across the globe; register through TC Jewfolk 

August 23, 2020, ONLINE

Hosted by The Mordecai M. Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood, Evanston, IL

B’Dibur Echad: A Jewish Celebration and Critique of our Relationship to Technology in the Era of COVID-19

August 17, 2020, ONLINE

Hosted by American Jewish University, B’yachad Program, Los Angeles, CA

A Dialogue between Rabbis Elliot Dorff and Jeffrey Schein about Technology and Judaism

The Masked Rider

I have been wondering what might account for the waning motivation to be “masked” in public during the COVID-19 pandemic.

You will most likely connect with my questions and observations (posted in my education column at the Mordecai Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood) if:

a) You are puzzled or perturbed by the reduction in mask-wearing as a mitzvah/act of civil obedience;

b) You are old enough to remember the Lone Ranger radio and television shows and its clarion call to pay attention to “the masked rider”;

c) You are a biking enthusiast;

d) You love looking at contemporary situations through Rabbi Ben Bag Bag’s understanding of Jewish texts;  keep turning it and you will always find something of value.

 

 

Tithadesh: Renewing Jewish Education by Going “Retro” with Mordecai Kaplan

Education requires a guiding vision. Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, founder of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement, had a vision for Jewish education unlike any other; and yet we now find ourselves in a very different world than the one for which Kaplan described and took action on his vision.

We invite you to come and explore how the Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood (for which I am the Senior Education Consultant) has evolved Kaplan’s vision for Jewish Education for the 21st Century. This project should excite Rabbis, scholars, educators, theorists – AND the Center needs your help to bring it to life.