Building Alignment for Lasting Change: Lessons from Transforming Hebrew Education

2025 Innovators Retreat Remarks by JEIC Managing Director Sharon Freundel

I am truly thrilled to welcome all of you to JEIC’s 2025 Innovators Retreat. This is a bold experiment for our organization. Let me explain why.

JEIC began 13 years ago as a vision that Manette Mayberg, a trustee of the Mayberg Foundation, had. She wanted to improve the teaching and learning in Jewish day schools so that our next generation would be stronger, more knowledgeable, and more confident in their own Jewishness.

In order to accomplish these daunting goals, JEIC has been through a number of iterations. We have come to believe–based on the vast experience of our staff members and evidence from outside sources–that the best way to do that is to help each child develop their own meaning from their Judaic classes and their Jewish experiences in school. That’s what we refer to when we say “student-centered learning.”

We also believe that kids and adults alike today are thirsting for a spiritual connection to something larger than they are. Whether you call this nature, or global community, or universe, or as we do, God, we want to help schools and teachers facilitate this relationship formation for each of their students. We refer to it as God-centered learning, and we know that it looks different in each of the 900+ Jewish day schools in North America.

In order to accomplish the dual goals of elevating student-centered and God-centered learning, we all need to take a close look at our own institutions to assure that we are doing the best we can for our students. Even if we’re doing really well, there is always room for improvement, both because perfection is asymptotic–we never quite reach the finish line, because we are working with moving targets. Our students this year are different from our students last year. I sometimes look at the lesson plans I created when I started in this business in 1978, all handwritten and still at my house in 3-inch binders, and I can’t believe I ever taught that way, nor can I believe that kids in those days were willing to sit and be lectured at for 45 minutes in a row with some back and forth questions and answers as the only interceding break.

We’ve come such a long way and yet, we still have a ways to go. And that’s why we’re all here today. This is JEIC’s first foray into the West Coast. We thank you, Seattle, and our partners, the Samis Foundation, for welcoming us so warmly! In succeeding years, we hope to continue taking our message around the country to diverse cities and regions, opening the door and setting the stage for continuous improvement in Jewish day schools in North America.

We are all here because we care about Jewish day schools. We are embarking now on a 26-hour journey together, where we will meet ourselves and each other as changemakers, as visionaries, and as people deeply committed to the endurance of the Jewish people.

I would be remiss not to mention the ongoing chaos surrounding our homeland, Israel, and the continuing unrest around the world, including the rising number of antisemitic incidents against Jews in the United States and globally. We pray for the return of the missing hostages and for the health and safety of all of those in harm’s way. We pray that peace reigns quickly and completely in our days.

And, folks, this is exactly why we need to redouble our efforts to create a next generation of proud, confident, and unafraid young Jews who will go out and live vigorously Jewish lives, embedded in our ancient traditions while improving the world by being the moral role models that we are mandated to be. We, each one of us in this room, has the power to be part of that holy work.

And moreover, it is possible! Our undertaking may be daunting, but it is in no way not possible. We can do it and we all have been doing it in incremental stages already. That’s why now we are kicking off our joint adventure of Jewish Day Schools: Mission Possible!

May we all come together over the next day, create new relationships and invest in imaginative ways to elevate our children. I know it is our joint passion to do just that.