After a year of work, Temple Sholom's 22-person intergenerational Educational Task Force, under the leadership of Chris Kraus, is pleased to announce a re-envisioning and reinvention of Jewish learning for our community.  

Our vision is of a community learning together across generations.

This re-envisioning includes the following basic ideas:

• Community Based Learning
  • We will create a sacred intergenerational community of learners.
    
    
• Learning by Doing.    We will learn by doing, experiencing, and then understanding
  
  
• Learning with External Partners and incorporating social justice in our learning.  Our partners will be:
   
  • Friends from Israel (Chaverim M'Yisrael)
    
  • Valley Interfaith Center (a local food and clothing bank)
    
  • Elementz (an urban arts center for hip hop and respect)

Here is Rabbi Terlinchamp's video describing our new Lifelong Learning Program:

Temple Sholom will hold Community-Based Sunday School from 9:30AM Until 12:15PM.   

We want all of our generations to participate and learn together and from each other, while meeting each generations' specific needs.

There will be four class groups for kids (see our religious school page).  There will be two classes for adults in a trimester rotation. 

Key Features of our Sunday School are:

• Community Prayer Session
  
  
• Taught by Professional Faculty Assisted by Teen Leaders
  
  
• Core Instruction in Torah, Avoda (Sacred Connections to God), G'milut Chasadim (Good Deeds) for both adults and children
  
  
• Creativity Curriculum Exploring Jewish Themes in Visual Arts, Dance, Drama and Writing
  
  
• "Leaving the Building" - Social Action Projects with our external partners, working on our community garden.

Does this look like Hebrew class?? 

Temple Sholom has launched its innovative multi-generational Ivrit (Hebrew) classes.  

This coming year, we will have both adult classes and children's classes on Wednesday nights, including B'Nai Mitzvah course of beginning Hebrew in preparation for Torah-Reading Ceremony.  

The adults and children come together for sharing after the formal classes.

  Martin Luther King, Jr Lifelong Learning Program with Elementz January 2013:

  Lifelong Learning Program Photo Album

Chris Kraus is Temple Sholom's Director of Lifelong Learning.  

Over the past year, Chris worked with our temple community to develop and implement our re-envisioned lifelong learning program that is consistent with our unique niche of being an innovator in the Cincinnnati Jewish community.

Chris has taught at all levels of the Wise Temple religious school, had a decade of camping and counseling experience at the URJ Goldman Union Camp Institution, a 4-year liberal arts studies degree in the psychology of religion at Bowdoin College, two years of graduate ecumenical theological studies at the Harvard Divinity School, Kivunim (New Directions)Institute of Experiential Learning for Israel & World Jewish Communities Studies 2008.  

Chris is also currently Visiting Instructor in Jewish Education at HUC-JIR, Cincinnati.    Chris was also recently selected as this year’s honoree from HUC-JIR for the Celebration of Teaching Award.

Chris and his wife Bari, who is an early childhood education professional, have two teenage daughters.

His email address is:  LifeLongLearning@TempleSholom.net

  Our Learners Will...

• Understand how to use the Hebrew Bible as a guide to good living
  
  
• Engage in the practice of Hebrew Prayer, in synagogue and beyond
  
  
• Commit to daily acts of kindness, justice, and goodness
  
  
• Develop bonds of Sisterhood and Brotherhood that inspire care for family, Jewish community and the world
  
  
• Value our Jewish history of engagement with people of diverse backgrounds and actively practice welcoming
  
  
• Experience how a group can achieve much more by working together.

          
    VALLEY INTERFAITH

3100 Longmeadow Lane     Cincinnati, OH  45236

  513.791.1330        office@templesholom.net