The Beating Heart of Jewish Education
July 27, 2010
By Heidi Rabinowitz Estrin
We are the People of the Book, and the library is the beating heart of our very Jewish love of learning.
If you are lucky, your institution has its own library. I don’t mean a bookshelf in a corner, filled with random donated volumes. I mean a full-service circulating library, staffed by a librarian who supports your curriculum. That is my wish for you — that you have access to a library like the one I am privileged to run at Congregation B’nai Israel in Boca Raton.
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Librarians are often the only staff that go into every class and actually know every kid in the school. They augment Jewish values, culture, history for both the students and the school teachers. Teachers that use their librarians for resources and curriculum, as well as classroom participation, end up with more vibrant, relevant classes and happier students and parents. When the parents waylay the librarian to find the name of the book the student talked about all the way home, you know that the material is reaching the students. Starting your child reading Judaically themed material as a child can result in a lifetime of learning, long past religious school is over.