Hebrew High is returning to Southern Arizona this fall.
Jewish Philanthropies of Southern Arizona is relaunching Hebrew High as “a community-built, student-shaped weekly Jewish learning and belonging initiative for grades 8–12,” according to organizers. Sessions will be held on Tuesday evenings, beginning Aug. 18.
Molly Dunn, Ph.D., JPSA education associate, is spearheading the program with input from a wide range of community members, including local Jewish scholars, Israeli educators, rabbis, youth-engagement professionals, alumni, teens, and families across Southern Arizona.
Dunn explains that the new Hebrew High model begins with a central concern: many young Jews are being asked to navigate increasingly complex questions about Jewish identity, antisemitism, Israel, politics, and belonging before they have developed the knowledge and language to understand Jewish identity and peoplehood themselves.
David Graizbord, Ph.D., director of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Arizona, has been a key thought-partner, Dunn says, and will teach a course on Jewish identity that will anchor the program.
Based on a UA course he teaches to honor students, the course will start with the questions, “Who are the Jews, what are they about?”
“These are very basic questions to which many students don’t have accurate answers,” Graizbord says. Hebrew High will allow “students who are not yet in college to grapple with them, so that when they do get to college, their mental and cultural motors are already running.”
The class will be a seminar, not a lecture course, he emphasizes, with student discussions at its core, inspired by documents from a variety of sources and time periods. The course will cover everything from the “names by which Jews know themselves and are known” to Jewish languages, laws, and customs, recurring challenges, patterns of socialization, and more, including “the trove of memory that Jews have developed over millennia.”
All students will also take a conversational Hebrew class, Dunn says, explaining that prospective students said they are less concerned with the erstwhile “Hebrew for Credit” class than with being able to connect with Israeli family members and friends.
In 2020, during the pandemic, Hebrew High went online and included only the Hebrew for Credit class. It later returned as an in-person class that was discontinued after the 2022-23 school year.
The new Hebrew High model is “a significant reimagining” of the program, says Dunn, who adds that starting Hebrew High with eighth grade is important, bridging middle and high school.
In Jewish tradition, becoming b’nai mitzvah is supposed to mark the start of living your adult Jewish life, she says, “but it’s often today where a lot of Jewish teens kind of just drop off.”
“College and young-adult Jewish life may later offer new points of connection, but the years in between are not a minor pause,” she says. “They are years in which young people form enduring friendships, move toward their adult identities, explore and choose political and ethical frameworks, form relationships to institutions, and develop expectations about where they belong.”
Hebrew High is open to Jewish students from all backgrounds, experiences, and levels of Jewish knowledge.
Along with serious learning, Hebrew High will offer peer community, shared meals, and multiple modes of Jewish engagement, Dunn says. Potential classes or workshops include “Jewish Culture Lab: Food, Art, Poetry, Song” and “Israel: History, Culture, People.”
Parents of teens in the community had been asking JPSA to revive Hebrew High even before Dunn began a series of listening sessions to get input, says JPSA President and CEO Hava Leipzig Holzhauer.
Those requests echo what JPSA learned from its recent “Pulse” survey (see related story), Leipzig Holzhauer says, which is that there’s a hunger for deeper belonging and engagement.
There’s been “a lot of buzz about Hebrew High … a lot of excitement and curiosity about what’s coming back,” Dunn says.
Registration is available HERE.
