About This New Curriculum

Values for parents to share with their children

Foundations of Jewish Family Living is a new curriculum for parents that provides a thought-provoking encounter with the core values of Judaism. Developed by the renowned Florence Melton Adult Mini-School, a project of the Hebrew University, the curriculum brings to life the master stories from our tradition and the profound messages they convey.

This rich learning experience for adults will provide an opportunity for you to bring the Jewish conversation home to share with your young child. At a time in your family's life when your child is beginning his or her own Jewish education, Foundations of Jewish Family Living provides you with the learning, the language, and the confidence to be a teacher to your own children.

The topics to be explored include:

Part I: A Year of Values: Exploring values through the Jewish holidays

Lesson 1: Stories and Values — Introduction to Foundations
Lesson 2: Reflecting the Source — Creation, Rosh Hashanah, and our Godly Image
Lesson 3: The Gift of Self Improvement — Teshuvah (Repentance), Yom Kippur, and the Golden Calf
Lesson 4: Embracing the Other — Welcoming guests, Abraham, and Sukkot
Lesson 5: Living Beyond the Day to Day — Shabbat: creating holy time
Lesson 6: Making Our Own Miracles — Chanukah, Maccabees, religious freedom
Lesson 7: Protecting Our Eden — Protecting our world, teaching our children, Tu B’shvat
Lesson 8: Rising to the Occasion — Esther, Purim, freedom of choice and heroism
Lesson 9: Forever Leaving Egypt — Passover, Jewish Identity: Israel and the Diaspora
Lesson 10: Becoming Jewish — Ruth, Shavuot and covenant

Part II: Day to Day Values: Exploring values for everyday family living

Lesson 11: Birth of a Nation — Abraham and heeding the call
Lesson 12: Creating Jewish Spaces — Jacob’s dream, the home, the objects within
Lesson 13: Sacred Sound Bytes — Hannah and Prayer
Lesson 14: Essential Judaism — Hillel and treating others the way you would want to be treated
Lesson 15: Words that Hurt — Miriam and avoiding gossip
Lesson 16: Healing Process — The value of visiting the sick
Lesson 17: Overcoming Anger — Joseph and his brothers, avoiding grudges
Lesson 18: Clearing a Path for Others — Building trustworthiness
Lesson 19: Giving Respect, Expecting Respect — Honor between generations
Lesson 20: Eternal Hope, Concluding Lesson

About the Author

Catriella Freedman, a Los Angeles native, was previously a Florence Melton Adult Mini-School teacher, and is currently part of the Gandel (Israeli version of the Mini-School) faculty. She has received degrees from Princeton and Harvard in Religion and Jewish Studies, and has studied at the Drisha Institute in Manhattan and Midreshet Lindenbaum in Jerusalem. She lived for many years in Albany, NY, where she was an adult educator and Jewish Studies Principal of the Bet Shraga Hebrew Academy. She currently resides in Zikhron Ya'akov, Israel.

For more information about Foundations in your community, contact your local Melton director.

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