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‘Aha’
Moments

Melton brings adult
Jewish learning into
new perspective.

Melton students Caren Harwood, Neil Cantor, Lori Cohn and Lewis and Judy Tann
in discussion

Stacy Gittleman | Contributing Writer

K

icking off the fall with an updat-
ed curriculum, educators and
administrators of the Detroit
Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish
Learning welcome Jewish adults to
explore what ancient Jewish sages knew
about “texting.”
The two-year Melton program invites
students to be challenged by Judaism’s
teachings and find out how and why
centuries-old texts are applicable to 21st-
century life.
“For adults, this
is your chance to
go back to Hebrew
school without your
parents waking you
up early on a Sunday
and making you
go,” said Judy Loebl,
director, adult Jewish
Judy Loebl
learning, Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit and
Melton director. She added that those
stories and Torah texts, such as Purim,
Chanukah and the Creation, look much
different when re-examined as an adult.
More than 1,000 people in Detroit
have enrolled in Melton, a project
sponsored by the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit and the Jewish
Community Center and housed at loca-
tions throughout Metro Detroit.
Prior to the new fall semester, Melton
Detroit will offer three sample sessions
to potential students Aug. 9 and 11 (see
box).
She expects four Year One classes to
attract between 20-25 students per class
and said the school has experienced a
95 percent retention rate for Year Two

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24 July 28 • 2016

students.
Year One coursework includes
“Rhythms” (the cycle of the Jewish cal-
endar) and “Purposes” (the “whys” of
Jewish customs). Year Two continues
with Ethics and Crossroads, perspectives
on Jewish history that examine how
major shifts in Jewish history, such as
the Exodus, destruction of the Temples,
expulsion of Spanish Jewry and the
rebirth of the modern State of Israel,
have had lasting ramifications on world
Jewry.

MELTON TEACHERS
Instructors include local newcomers like
Jill Gutmann, who has taught Melton
classes all over the world, most recently
in Auckland, New Zealand, and 13-year
veteran Rabbi Michele Faudem of Hillel
of Metro Detroit, who will be teaching
first- and second-year tracks as well as
a variety of graduate-
level courses.
“Melton is an
opportunity for the
Jewish adult student,
no matter where
they are in their
religious observance,
to learn and figure
Rabbi Michele
out
how Judaism can
Faudem
fit into their lives or
determine what their next steps will be
in their Jewish journey,” said Faudem,
whose graduate-level class on ethics
promises to touch on topics such as
organ donation, gun control and finan-
cial bankruptcy.
“I have not taught one class where
I have not had a student who has that