Jewish Education

ACADEMICS

JEWISH PATHWAYS

A Gann education provides the framework for answering some of life’s toughest questions through the lens of Jewish values and ethics. From powerful learning in Hebrew and Jewish Studies classes to immersive holiday experiences, our curriculum allows you to explore your personal Jewish journey.

You will have opportunities to partake in introductory classes though advanced studies all based on your interests—from deeply exploring Torah and Tanakh to critically thinking about modern political issues to learning about individual holidays and practices.

Fun and joyful celebrations include Shabbatonim (Shabbat experiences), holiday festivals, social justice experiences, and a trip to Israel. You will graduate with a strong set of Jewish values which will provide the solid foundation for combatting antisemitism and answering life’s big questions.

Identity Formation

Gann supports students in deepening their connection to themselves, to others, and to their larger Jewish community. We meet students where they are on their unique Jewish journey and nurture their curiosity and confidence to find personal relevance in shared Jewish experience.

Over four years, Gann students build a deep repository of Jewish values, knowledge, and content that enable them to better understand themselves, and the world around them. They explore essential aspects of development and identity-building – including mental health, gender, and equity – through a Jewish lens. They comfortably situate themselves within Jewish history and identify with the Jewish story, past and present. A diverse range of offerings in Jewish life, ritual, and practice inspire students to find meaning and community.

Gann students creatively apply their Jewish learning and shared values to the questions and challenges they encounter as they walk through the world. Inspired by their Jewish experience at Gann, graduates emerge prepared for an ongoing journey of growth, exploration, and becoming.

Pluralism

Gann’s vibrant and thriving community is rooted in shared Jewish values, history, and text. Our intentionally pluralistic environment encourages students to deepen their understanding of their own Jewish identity and to strive to understand others’ experiences, beliefs, and perspectives.

Through interdisciplinary learning opportunities and meaningful Jewish practice, students from a broad range of backgrounds cultivate critical skills – including empathy, appreciation for multiple perspectives, and curiosity about others – that enable them to find commonalities, and engage respectfully with difference.

Jewish Studies

At the heart of Jewish Studies at Gann is text study inviting students to join Jewish conversations begun over 3,000 years ago. Courses in Jewish studies range from Jewish biblical history to Jewish philosophy and ethics to everything in between.

Through close reading of both classical and modern Jewish texts, usually studied in pairs or small groups (“hevruta style”), Gann students gain a deeper understanding of Jewish values, practices, and history. This form of study empowers you to take charge of your own learning and make connections to the big ideas and questions you will encounter in your own life.

All Jewish Studies classes help students develop questioning, argumentation, and critical thinking skills around big ideas—such as what it means to be Jewish and to be human – preparing you to meet challenges to your identity and practice as you make your way in the world.

Jewish Studies or Hebrew Scholars

Students who want to delve more deeply into Jewish Studies or Hebrew may choose from an array of electives from Jewish Scribal Arts and Prayer Leadership Skills to Hebrew Chef and Israeli Current events. Students who make extra commitments to Jewish Studies and/or Hebrew partake in special programming and are honored as Gann Jewish Studies or Hebrew Scholars.

Ready to be Jewish on a College Campus

Students close out their Jewish Studies curriculum at Gann with a course entitled “The Jew in the Modern World.” Built to prepare students to build lives as self-reflective and proud adult Jews as they move to college and beyond, students study successes of Jews in Israel, in the United States, and around the world, as well as the examining the challenges that persist, with an emphasis on the analysis of the new forms of antisemitism emerging today. This course also surveys the geopolitical history of the State of Israel and offers opportunities for students to reflect on their own relationship to the land of Israel and to the Zionist dream.

Israel Education

Gann celebrates the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, which offers the unparalleled opportunity for the Jewish people to exercise self-determination and build a vibrant democracy and a sustainable future for the Jewish people. Gann students explore the rich and complex history of the Jewish people’s deep connection to Israel and to Hebrew language, as expressed in its *Declaration of Independence. Gann prepares students to participate in robust discussions about Israel as they form their own views on and relationships to the people of Israel, the state of Israel, and the land of Israel.

*Quote from Declaration of Independence:

“THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”

Hebrew

Hebrew at Gann aims to develop your proficiency in the Hebrew language both to deepen your connection to Israeli society and to give you direct access to the Jewish canon, the language of Jewish expression since biblical times. Our Hebrew Department is committed to enabling every learner to gain a connection to and love of the Hebrew language.

Advanced Hebrew Courses

Advanced courses are thematically oriented to enrich language acquisition with cultural and historical content. Students work at an accelerated pace, with an emphasis on discussion as well as reading, research, presentation and composition. Students read accessible Israeli literature without adaptations and view Israeli videos with Hebrew subtitles only.

Heritage courses advance the Hebrew skills of students coming from Hebrew-speaking households. Students work at an accelerated pace, with a focus on high level presentations and debates. Students survey important milestones in Israeli history through research, writing, and discussion. Students also develop their Hebrew-language expository writing skills, with a focus on the persuasive essay. Students read and analyze numerous sophisticated works of Hebrew literature by classical Israeli authors such as Shaul Tchernichovsky and Amos Oz.

Jewish Education

ACADEMICS