Sylvia Frankel

Purposes, Dramas
Portland, Oregon

Sylvia Frankel

Sylvia Frankel was born in England but raised in Antwerp, Belguim where she attended a Jewish Day School. Her involvement in B'nei Akiva, the religious Zionist movement, led her to move to Israel after graduation from High School. She attended Bar Ilan University where she met her husband.

Sylvia has an undergraduate degree in Psychology, and a graduate degree from New York in Romance Languages and Literature. She then moved to Oregon where she received her Ph.D, and had her two children, one of whom just made her a grandmother. "That child was born on a Melton teaching day between my morning and evening classes," says Sylvia. "All the Melton students were involved in that birth."

Eliana Temkin, former Director of the Portland Mini-School, says, "Her depth of knowledge and pluralistic approach only adds to her students experience with the Melton curriculum." As one student noted, "Sylvia… she is one of those special people with whom you feel privileged just to be in her presence." Eliana concludes, "We are lucky and honored to have Sylvia on our faculty."

Sylvia has been teaching with the Mini-School for four years. This for her was a wonderful opportunity to continue teaching Jewish related topics. Also the fact that the curriculum was developed by faculty members of the Hebrew University and that the approach was pluralist all added to her interest. She has changed in that she is now more open to ideas which are not considered traditional.

The greatest challenge for Sylvia is packing in all the information in one hour. What she loves best about this job is entering a classroom and seeing the eagerness of the students to learn. She enjoys watching her students connect with what they have studied in the Mini-School and apply it to their everyday lives, or hearing after a class that they went home and studied the subject further because they are hooked on Jewish text learning. She is also amazed how much she has learned from her students.

Sylvia always makes a point of being well prepared, respecting her students and listening to them, and not pretending to have all the answers. Asked what wish she would want granted, she says, "I'd love to be able to take all my students to Israel." She would also love it if all her students knew Hebrew well enough to be able to read and understand.

In addition to teaching at the Mini-School, she also teaches at two local universities in the department of Religious Studies and History and is on the Florence Melton Adult Education Steering Committee. In her spare time she hikes and dabbles in photography.

Sylvia can be reached by email at: frankel@lclark.edu

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