Ready For
Some ATID?

Monday nights mean
Jewish learning for local
Conservative teens.

Stacy Gittleman | Contributing Writer

W

hether it is dubbed Alliance
for Teens in Detroit, ATID
or straight-up “Monday
Night School,” Jewish teens from Detroit’s
Conservative congregations have the
opportunity to come together each Monday
evening starting Sept. 12 at Adat Shalom in
Farmington Hills. They will socialize with
friends over dinner, make further connec-
tions with their Jewish heritage and delve
into topics that may have been a wee bit
too much on the mature side back in their
Hebrew school or day school days.
“All the kids know about the creation story
and Noah’s Ark,” said ATID Monday Night
School Director Melissa Ser. “But do they
know about what happened to Noah and his

Josh Kavner, 17, of Farmington Hills; Eli Weil, 18, and Zoe Weil, 16,
of West Bloomfield

family after the flood, or
at Sodom and Gomorrah,
or what happened to
Dina, Jacob’s only daugh-
ter? These are parts of
the Torah one cannot
exactly discuss with a
child in the fourth grade.
Melissa Ser
At ATID, they get to delve
into these more mature
stories, plus all the ‘whys’ of Judaism as they
approach young adulthood.”
Since it started in 2008, ATID’s enrollment
has declined, from more than 200 kids to a
current enrollment of about 40 teens. This
drop can be attributed to busier high school
schedules and the demands of secular extra-

curricular activities.
Is it still worth it to schedule a Hebrew
high school program for under 50 kids? If
it means a future of more Jews staying con-
nected to Judaism in Detroit, Ser responds
with a resounding “yes.”
“If a Jewish adult education program
attracted 30 to 40 students on a weekly
basis, it would be seen as an absolute suc-
cess,” Ser said. “We must keep in mind that
we also have our teens connected to Jewish
education through other outlets, such as
being madrichim [helpers] with our younger
Hebrew school students on Sundays and
midweek, and involvement in youth groups
or volunteer opportunities.
“Of course we want our Monday evening

Sunday School 2.0

Left: Ariella Madgy of
Huntington Woods at Sunday
school graduation.

Video games? Art? Aish Detroit rolls out new
w
curriculum for 2016-2017 school year.

Facing page: Last year’s
Sunday school graduating
class at Aish.

Robin Schwartz | Contributing Writer

A

ish Detroit is giving Sunday school
a reboot, reimagining the weekly
religious school experience and
bringing things like computer coding, video
editing, cooking and drama into the mix.
This school year, students will learn about
the Passover story, for example, while build-
ing pyramids using the popular virtual real-
ity adventure game Minecraft. They’ll absorb
the rich meanings behind
Bible stories by acting
them out in a play. Classes
are held at Aish Detroit on
Coolidge Highway in Oak
Park.
“As a teacher of
little kids, my challenge
Simcha Tolwin, is not the content; it’s the
method,” explains Rabbi
executive
Simcha Tolwin, executive
director of
director of Aish Detroit.
Aish Detroit
“How am I going to best
communicate the information?”
Aish found answers by partnering with

38 August 25 • 2016

experts, including AccelerateKID, an inde- -
ed
pendent, local enrichment program focused
on teaching science, technology, engineer- -
ing, arts and math. They brought in a
seasoned drama teacher and worked with
f-
others to prepare a nontraditional, state-of-
the-art curriculum.
What’s more, parents and students can
select the various courses they want to
take each semester. Offerings include
“Torah Tube,” which allows students
to “create Torah videos while learn-
ing video editing,” and “Art and Soul,”
which promises a “hands-on experi-
ence of learning new art methods
and creating pieces that will enhance your r
holidays.”
“When it comes to enrichment, if it’s
dance or Sunday school, dance wins. If it’s
anything versus Sunday school, anything
wins,” Tolwin says. “That’s not a bad thing; it
just is what it is. The point is — we have to
up our game.”

program numbers to increase, and to do that
we must offer them consistent quality learn-
ing that will make giving up a few hours each
Monday night well worth their time.”
At the close of last school year, a newly
formed teen advisory council helped Ser and
ATID faculty put a new spin and focus on
the Monday evening program.
“Overwhelmingly, the kids said they
wanted to see their Jewish friends and, at the
same time, they wanted to do some serious
Jewish learning,” Ser said. “And, because of
the demanding schedules of high schoolers,
they said the classes needed to be worth their
time. Everything from Talmud and Torah to
Jewish views on relationships, as well as the
arts, including Jewish meditation and yoga,
spirituality and even photography — to be
honest, the same kinds of topics that draw
adults to the synagogue for deeper learning.”
Ser said core classes explore the “whys” of
Judaism, what Jewish texts have to say about
love and relationships, and a deeper under-
standing of Jewish holidays and life cycles.
Ser said ATID will also place an emphasis
on Jewish history, from the centuries lead-
ing up to the modern State of Israel to the
role of the Jew in American history. For this
coursework, Ser said the same skills honed in
an Advanced Placement History or English
class can be applied to texts such as reading

NEW
WAY TO
LEARN HEBREW
What else is new? Hebrew reading will no
longer be taught after second grade until
eight months before a student’s bar or bat
mitzvah. Tolwin says teaching Hebrew in a
Sunday school format simply doesn’t work.
“The challenge with Hebrew is as fol-

lows: We have 24 weeks of Hebrew
schoo and the kids will learn a new
school,
langu in one hour a week with
language
half a year break in the summertime?”
Tolwin says. “It makes no sense.”
Inste parents will have the option
Instead,
enrol
of enrolling
their children in an online
program called Hebrew Home, started
by the JC
JCC of Manhattan. For $750, stu-
dents can participate in Hebrew classes
i
over the internet,
including one-on-one
instruction Aish will also offer a weekly,
instruction.
half-hour o open Hebrew reading and cocoa
club from 9 9:30-10 a.m. before Sunday
school start
starts.
ru from 10 a.m. to noon each
Classes run
Sunday follo
Sunday,
followed by a community lunch. The
cost is $595 per nine-week semester or $995
for the full year.
“The previous [Sunday school] format
mirrored the kind of approach we all grew
up with. You’d have prayers, classroom work,
learn about the holidays, learn some Hebrew
and leave,” says Elysa White of Huntington