Mission & Overview
A whole school curriculum of Jewish holidays, Tefilla (prayer), Kehilla (community) Israel, Mitzvot, and Tzedakah, in addition to the regular objectives for each grade, are the core of the Jacques C. Religious School. Students, depending on the class, will experience art, music, story time in our library and visits with the Rabbi. As a member of our community and a student of the Jacques C. Shure Religious School, students will use the building blocks of their knowledge and experience of rituals and values to help form a Jewish identity.
Menschkateers
3 through 5 year old children
Parent and child participatory program offered six or seven times throughout the Religious School year. Activities are focused around the Jewish holidays.
Time: Sunday mornings from 9:30 am – 11:00 am Dates: September 30, October 14, December 2, January 13, February 24, April 21
K – 8th
The Whole-School lessons make up a spiral curriculum in which each lesson focuses on a different aspect of Judaism. The entire school is learning the same subject on the same day, with different focus depending on their grade level. Students have a unique experience each year, while studying the pillars that make up our Jewish identity
Ninth Grades – Tolerance and Tradition
Our goal is to give the student a comfortable setting to discuss and learn on a higher level about Judaism; the past, present, and future of the world and how it affects us as Jewish people. Ninth grade focuses on comparative religions.
Tenth Grade – Confirmation
In Reform Jewish tradition, Confirmation is a significant life cycle event which is shared by students, families, and the community. This ceremony, often tied to the celebration of Shavuot, is both a graduation from the Jacques C. Shure Religious School at the end of tenth grade, and a public confirmation of students’ commitment to Judaism.
Confirmation has become firmly related to the festival of Shavuot with its dual celebration of the giving of “first fruits” and the giving of the Torah on Sinai. So, the students, these “first fruits”, or the best that our families have to offer, accept their responsibility in Judaism on the same day that Israel accepted God’s Torah in mutual consent.
Confirmation should be a culmination of a student’s years of attendance at Religious School, becoming a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, and a spiritual quest finding direction and guidance, if not always precise answers.