Today’s Israel is a vibrant kaleidoscope of sights, sounds, tastes, ideas, people, and cultures. Often, when teaching Israel, we focus on facts and events, ignoring the dynamic and intense life that is lived there. By engaging with the world of arts and culture, however, we are presented with an ideal vehicle for exploring a vibrant vision of Israel. Arts and culture provide a reflection of the heart of the people and the pulse of society; they bring to the surface themes and ideas that may not find expression in other ways. To familiarize learners with Israeli history, society, and aspirations, we take our cues for this series from various media forms.

All sessions are accompanied by educational materials.

1. Declaration of Independence Knowledge and appreciation of historic and current events and their complexity are important aspects of understanding and engaging with Israel. The foundational document serves as a stepping-stone to exploring different aspects of the fledgling state that are still as relevant today as they were in 1948. We will look at several passages from the Declaration and explore how they reverberate in the field of arts and culture.

2. Fun with Junk: Exploration Through Art Inspired by Hanoch Piven, a world-renowned Israeli artist who works with objects and junk to create portraits, we will learn about fun art from Israel, and explore ways of using this medium for ourselves and for our students. An introduction to Hanoch Piven’s art and examples of students’ work will be included.

3. Classic Israeli Tales What do Israeli parents read to their young kids before they go to sleep? What stories do kids ask for when they curl up in bed on a cold winter day or a hot summer night? Leading Israeli writers wrote (and still write) for young children as well as for adults. Books and stories by such renowned writers as Leah Goldberg, Nachum Gutman, Miriam Rot and David Grossman became a bookshelf feature of almost every Hebrew-speaking Israeli family. Many of these books are classics, an integral part of the canon of Israeli literature.

We hope to connect young children to Israel by introducing them to classic Israeli children’s books and, by doing so, launch them on a life-long relationship with Israel through its arts and culture. We will read two classic stories in translation and discuss how to present them to our learners.

We value educators and provide a full grant for professional development courses with the code TEACHER at registration.