SEPTEMBER 24 • 2020 | 21
ONLINE CONTENT
Due to school closures in
March, the final field trips of
the 2019-2020 school year
— to a local Muslim mosque
and Hindu temple — were
done virtually. Religious
Diversity Journeys program
director Wendy Miller Gamer
of Huntington Woods cre-
ated these virtual sessions to
complete the year. For the
2020-21 school year, a new
program will provide engaging
interfaith and intercultural
learning opportunities using
creative remote and virtual
content. Students do not need
to leave school and aspects
of the program can be done
independently or with teacher
participation, she explained.
Two organizational part-
ners, Detroit Public Television
and the Detroit Experience
Factory, are developing the
program, which will have two
tracks — Foundation and
Ambassador. The Foundation
Track will be similar to the
current curriculum with syn-
chronous learning (online in
real time) and remote field
trips to local houses of wor-
ship. The Ambassador Track is
a leadership development pro-
gram to teach skills for build-
ing intercultural connections.
Detailed program informa-
tion, including tuition fees,
scholarship availability and
registration forms, are avail-
able online at detroitinterfaith
council.com. The Interfaith
Leadership Council is a faith-
based nonprofit civic organi-
zation made up of religious
and lay leaders of many faiths
whose shared values compel
them to work toward a com-
munity that lives together in
harmony.
since the online application
opened, 14 Chabad day
schools have applied to the
program. Shneur says the
program has enrolled 131
students to date, surpassing
his initial goal of 100 by the
fall semester.
Though Aronson hopes
that the Our Heritage
Program will expand in the
years to come, he says that
in his experience working
in Jewish life, small projects
with simple goals are some-
times the most effective. He
adds that the small number
of student recruitments away
from public schools won’
t
pose a threat to the tradition-
al school system.
“It’
s not as though we’
re
draining students away from
the public schools,” he said.
“The public schools, and even
the private schools right now,
are struggling with how to
educate the kids they have.”
Aronson says that in the
long run, he believes the proj-
ect comes back to one of his
and the Jewish community’
s
primary goals: to engage as
many students as possible.
He thinks the Our Heritage
Program is one important
way to do so.
“J-school education is fun-
damental for creating Jewish
identity,” Aronson said. “With
all of the horrors and trage-
dies and societal upset that
the virus has caused, it also
provides an opportunity for
us to improve the level of
Jewish education, to attract
more children to it and to
increase that sense of Jewish
identity in our young people.”
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COVID-19 put Amy Greenhut in a difficult situation.
“My company kept operating through the shutdown,
but they rotated the staff through the schedule, so we
were all only working a day or two a week. There were
no full schedules, and no overtime,” Amy said. That lost
income, she said, was necessary to meet her expenses.
“It’s just me and my dogs, and one paycheck. It was
great to remain employed, but I got behind on my
mortgage payments, and I was getting really worried,”
Amy said. “Not many places make personal loans, and
most of those require lots of paperwork and take a lot
of time. I had no idea where I was going to get that
money, and I was truly concerned about getting even
further behind while I searched for options.”
For a previous need, Amy’s cousin had suggested she
contact Jewish Family Service, which had referred her
to Hebrew Free Loan, so Amy returned to HFL for help.
“Hebrew Free Loan is full of kind, caring people who
go out of their way to help others,” Amy said. “With
the shutdown, I really liked using the online application.
It was so simple to begin the loan process, and they got
right back to me. Truly, it doesn’t get any easier than
going to HFL. I hope I come into money someday, so I
can give to Hebrew Free Loan, and help others the
way the agency helped me.”
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