The Circle of Jewish Life By Joel Lurie Grishaver
Grades: 4–7. Format: Textbook. Subject: Jewish lifecycle. Key Features—Empower students to meaningfully participate in the broad range of Jewish life cycle events. Chaptera include traditional texts, full scripts of life cycle ceremonies, art projects, and stories.Focus on diversity of Jewish life, with elements that address adoption, divorce, gay marriage, and mourning. Chapters on lifelong Jewish learning, aging, and conversion push learning about the Jewish life cycle beyond brit milah, b’nai mitzvah, and weddings.
Life cycle is important because it is a place where our students will encounter Judaism in real life. They will all celebrate weddings, become bar or bat mitzvah, and will face funerals. It is in those moments that the Jewish tradition can be a rich resource and make a difference. In order for that to happen they need two things: (1) They need to know the dance steps. That includes knowing the names, prayers, rituals, and vocabulary associated with a particular lifecycle event. But also (2) they need to have a sense of its meaning, of the values it actualizes, of the way it connects the Eternal to real life experience. The Circle of Jewish Life is the only life cycle resource that enables both of these. This is a life cycle book for the new millennium; one that describes Jewish life in the ways that our students actually experience. It contains both texts and activities. It enters areas where you need to go, ones that you’ve never had a resource for before: conversion, adoption, divorce, the meaning of growing old and more. The book is rich in Jewish texts, stories, and opportunities to not only learn the vocabulary of the Jewish life cycle but to enter into its concepts as well. Purchase
THE CIRCLE OF JEWISH LIFE [ITEM #17020] . . . . . . . . . . . $10.95 TEACHER’S GUIDE [ITEM #17021] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $19.95
83