Ilana Turetsky: How Online Learning Enriches the Teaching and Learning Experience

The upcoming summer semester will mark my fourth semester teaching online courses at Azrieli Graduate School. I have found the experience to be enriching, broadening, and stimulating. While some may envision online teaching as a direct transfer from the live classroom to the virtual setting, I perceive online teaching as a categorically different enterprise. Allow me to share three brief thoughts on my experiences teaching online, highlighting some of the unique features that I believe online learning affords. Read the rest of this entry…

Graduate Profile: Willie Roth, Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary

A common spirit runs throughout Yeshiva University: the mandate to matter.

Students of all ages and backgrounds come here to pursue a range of professional and personal dreams, from scientific research and medicine to law, Jewish education or public policy. Our students seek to harness their unique talents and YU education to make a lasting impact on the world around them. This spring, when they graduate from YU, these new alumni will hit the ground running.

In the weeks leading up to Commencement, YU News will feature one remarkable graduate from each school, reflecting, in their own words, on their time here, their passions and their dreams for the future.

Meet the Class of 2013.

Following his semikha studies at RIETS, Willie Roth will attend Harvard Law School in the fall.

Name: Willie Roth

School: Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS)

Hometown: Teaneck, NJ

Passion: Halakha and law

What is unique about semikha studies at RIETS?

RIETS is the only place where a rabbinical student can learn from first-rate talmidei chachamim [Torah scholars], poskim [deciders of Jewish law], rabbanim and mental health professionals all under one roof. Whether you’re in rabbanus [rabbinate] or Jewish education, a rabbi’s job entails many different responsibilities. You need training indifferent areas and exposure to many kinds of experts. RIETS offers a comprehensive and holistic approach to a rabbinical career. Read the rest of this entry…

Graduate Profile: Eli Shapiro, Azrieli Graduate School for Jewish Education and Administration

A common spirit runs throughout Yeshiva University: the mandate to matter.

Students of all ages and backgrounds come here to pursue a range of professional and personal dreams, from scientific research and medicine to law, Jewish education or public policy. Our students seek to harness their unique talents and YU education to make a lasting impact on the world around them. This spring, when they graduate from YU, these new alumni will hit the ground running.

In the weeks leading up to Commencement, YU News will feature one remarkable graduate from each school, reflecting, in their own words, on their time here, their passions and their dreams for the future.

Meet the Class of 2013.

Azrieli’s Eli Shapiro hopes to professionalize the Jewish education landscape.

Name: Eli Shapiro

Hometown: Far Rockaway, NY

School: Azrieli Graduate School for Jewish Education and Administration

Passion: Professionalizing Jewish education

Why Jewish education?

Jewish education is the foundation of our community and the basis of our future, but we often approach it in a “this is what’s done” fashion that causes us to miss out on best practices. I feel very strongly that if in some way I can effect a positive change and bring more deliberate practices to such a significant component of Jewish life, I have an obligation to do so. To quote Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Read the rest of this entry…

Rabbi Joshua Fass to Keynote May 30 Commencement; Honorees Include Tony Gelbart, Abraham Naymark and Merryl Tisch

Rabbi Joshua Fass, Yeshiva University alumnus and executive director of Nefesh B’Nefesh, will deliver the keynote address and receive an honorary doctorate at YU’s 82nd Commencement Ceremony on Thursday, May 30, at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey. YU President Richard M. Joel will also confer honorary doctorates upon entrepreneur Tony B. Gelbart; businessman and philanthropist Abraham Naymark, and Merryl H. Tisch, chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents. Read the rest of this entry…

PRISM Editors Karen Shawn and Jeffrey Glanz on Holocaust Education in the 21st Century

On Monday, Jews across the world will commemorate and mourn the tragic and unspeakable events of the Holocaust as they mark the 60th Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. Many will gather to pray, share stories and hear the testimony of survivors, including students at Yeshiva University. But as time passes and fewer survivors remain to bear witness, how can we as a community ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust are never forgotten?

PRISM: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Holocaust Educators, published by YU’s Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration, seeks to keep the memories and conversations of the Holocaust alive by examining specific issues through multidimensional lenses of history, poetry, psychology, education and art, among others. YU News sat down with editors Dr. Karen Shawn, visiting associate professor of Jewish education at Azrieli, and Dr. Jeffrey Glanz, Raine and Stanley Silverstein Chair in Professional Ethics and Values at Azrieli, to discuss the changing face of Holocaust education in the 21st century. Read the rest of this entry…

Hundreds Attend YU Jewish Job Fair Seeking Communal and Educational Careers 

Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future (CJF) and Institute for University-School Partnership hosted their annual Jewish Job Fair on YU’s Wilf Campus on February 28. More than 50 Jewish day schools and 20 community organizations from across North America, including the Orthodox Union, Nefesh B’Nefesh, Repair the World and others, participated in the event, which was free and open to the public, with YU students and alumni given one hour of priority access.

“Our annual Jewish Job Fair is a natural outgrowth of our mission to support and strengthen Jewish communities and organizations around the world,” said Rabbi Kenneth Brander, David Mitzner Dean of the CJF. Read the rest of this entry…

Adina Shmidman on the Various Roles of the Rabbi’s Wife 

Recently, a congregant asked me to speak to her daughter, who was planning to become a Rebbetzin, to give her some words of encouragement and advice. I immediately agreed and offered heartfelt congratulations and sincere wishes for all to go well. But, knowing how difficult the role can be, I had to give some serious thought as to what I would say to the new Rebbetzin.

Adina Shmidman serves as the Rebbetzin of the Lower Merion Synagogue in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

Being a Rebbetzin can be a great deal of work. Responsibilities often range from hosting meals to visiting sick congregants to supporting families through challenging times and reaching out to the unaffiliated. And there is the added challenge of juggling one’s home, family, and jobs.

The flip-side is the reward—not just the heavenly payback, but the earthly satisfaction. Forging deep, meaningful bonds with your congregation and knowing that you are changing Jewish life in your small corner of the world is incredibly gratifying.

So when I met with this young woman my first message to her was to embrace the position. I explained that the scope of the position—including adult and youth programming of all kinds, public and private Torah classes, and hosting guests and congregants—may seem overwhelming at first.

But I reassured her that just as in a new marriage there is an adjustment period where one gets to know her new spouse, here, too, the union of the rabbinic couple and shul is a relationship that develops in time. While there are many demands and responsibilities, you have the opportunity to use your unique talents and strengths to contribute to the spirit of the shul and the community.

Her first question was about managing her communal responsibilities while holding another job. Read the rest of this entry…

Moshe Sokolow on Israel’s Endangered Ally, the Island Country of Palau

The recent UN General Assembly vote granting observer nation status to Palestine was 138 in favor, 41 abstentions, and nine opposed. In addition to the United States, along with Canada, Panama, and the Czech Republic, the few nations that supported Israel’s opposition to the resolution were Palau, Micronesia, Nauru, and the Marshall Islands. It would be tragic if Israel were to lose the vote of any of its few reliable supporters at the United Nations, but that is just what might happen over the next few years—not due to any political intrigue but on account of global warming! At the moment, the endangered ally is the island republic of Palau, and just this summer PBS aired a report, titled Paradise Lost, calling attention to the potential of climate change to inundate and eliminate Palau and its Pacific neighbors.

An archipelago of 300 islands lying in the Philippine Sea north of Australia, with a total area of only 459 square miles, or, one for every Palauan (Israel, by comparison, has 21,000 square miles), Palau more than makes up for its diminutive size with its consistent support of Israel in world forums. Although all of Palau cannot scrape up even a minyan (a quorum of 10 Jews), its ambassador to the United Nations since 2004, Stuart Beck, is Jewish, as is Larry Miller, who served for 14 years as an associate justice of Palau’s Supreme Court. Somehow, Palau also produced two cyclists who competed in the 2009 Maccabiah Games. Read the rest of this entry…

New Online Master’s Program Brings Azrieli Training to Jewish Educators Across the Globe

Whether you live in New York, Los Angeles, Jerusalem or Johannesburg, you can now earn an advanced degree from the premier institution of Jewish education in North America.

Yeshiva University’s Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration will launch its first online master’s program, Azrieli Online, in spring 2013. Unlike a traditional master’s, the asynchronous online classes for this 36-credit degree will accommodate students’ work and teaching schedules and free them from being bound to a specific time or location, in addition to granting them access to renowned experts in Jewish education around the world. Most important, it will provide the same rigorous, high-quality advanced training for which Azrieli is renowned, including its pioneering coursework in fields such as differentiated instruction, cognition and assessment, all geared toward limmudei kodesh [Judaic studies].

“In my work with schools all across the continent, teachers and administrators tell me, ‘We’d love to attend Azrieli, but we are in Vancouver or Dallas or Miami, and relocating to NY, even for a summer, is difficult,’ ” said Dr. Jeffrey Glanz, who directs the master’s programs at Azrieli and holds the Raine and Stanley Silverstein Chair in Professional Ethics and Values. “Azrieli Online allows us to reach out to those who can’t physically be here and enhance the professionalism of Jewish educators worldwide by exposing them to our stellar faculty and innovative curriculum.” Read the rest of this entry…

In State of the University Address, President Joel Recounts Progress, Outlines Challenges and Articulates Renewed Vision for the Future

In his first State of the University address, Yeshiva University President Richard M. Joel announced on September 12 that he would accept the Board of Trustees’ offer to extend his term until June 2018 for a planned 15 years in office and outlined his vision for a united and prosperous University, both as an academic and as a communal institution.

“It is here, in this complex and special space, that we can see our future,” said the president before hundreds of alumni, students, faculty and staff in the Gottesman Library Heights Lounge on the Wilf Campus. Hundreds more watched the streaming broadcast of the address online. “If I listen carefully, I hear the murmurings of a consecrated conversation taking place here—a conversation between Torah and the world, between tradition and modernity, between the sacred contents of this beautiful bastion of wisdom and the wide world around it so desperately yearning for the dissemination of those contents.” Read the rest of this entry…