Hebrew and Jewish Studies

Hear It. Say It. Use It.

In the early grades, Hebrew comes alive through conversation, songs, movement, stories, games, classroom routines, and familiar experiences. Students learn to understand and use words, phrases, and simple sentences about themselves and the world around them—family, feelings, food, weather, school, holidays, and everyday activities. They begin reading Hebrew, develop familiarity with print and cursive writing, and learn to communicate basic needs, preferences, questions, and ideas. Students begin using the language from the start.
 

What if my child has not studied Hebrew in the past?

We are prepared to assist your child with their Hebrew studies. We offer small group instruction at a beginner level for children entering PJA who have little or no knowledge of the Hebrew language.

Create. Connect. Communicate.

As students’ proficiency grows, they move from relying primarily on memorized language toward creating with Hebrew. Students read increasingly authentic texts, listen for main ideas and important details, participate in conversations, ask and answer questions, describe experiences, express preferences and opinions, and communicate across a growing range of familiar situations.

They learn to combine and recombine language they already know rather than simply reproducing rehearsed sentences. Hebrew becomes a tool for navigating real-life contexts: talking about school and family, describing daily life, making plans, ordering food, making purchases, exploring Israel, and interacting with other people. Students also begin reading and writing with increasing independence and use Hebrew to summarize, describe, narrate, and respond.
 

What if my child has not studied Hebrew in the past?

We are prepared to assist your child with their Hebrew studies. We offer academic support for children entering PJA after 1st grade who have little or no knowledge of the Hebrew language.

Express. Interpret. Engage.

In Middle School, students use Hebrew with increasing independence, complexity, and purpose.
They engage with authentic and adapted Hebrew texts, conversations, media, and cultural content while developing their ability to understand main ideas, identify details, make inferences, and interpret meaning from context.
Students sustain longer conversations, narrate and describe across time frames, ask follow-up questions, express and support opinions, and adapt their language to different audiences and purposes.
As proficiency grows, Hebrew becomes a language through which students can explore Israeli society, culture, history, relationships, ethical questions, and contemporary life.
 

What if my child has not studied Hebrew in the past?

Students entering Middle School who have not learned Hebrew before will be in a beginner-level Hebrew class. We offer academic support to children entering PJA with little or no knowledge of Hebrew.

Belong. Wonder. Discover.

In the early grades, children discover that they are part of the Jewish story. Through Torah, tefilah, holidays, Israel, art, music, storytelling, play, and celebration, students experience the joy and rhythms of Jewish life.
As they grow, students move from listening to Jewish stories to wondering about them: Why did this person make that choice? What might I have done? What can this story teach me about how I want to live? They begin learning with a hevrutah (study partner), discovering that another person's ideas can help them notice and understand more.

Jewish learning begins with belonging - and grows through curiosity.

Question. Interpret. Build Together.

As students grow, so does their relationship with Jewish learning. They move increasingly into the text itself - learning to notice what is surprising, ask authentic questions, explore multiple interpretations, and support their ideas with evidence.

Students learn in hevrutah, discovering that Jewish learning is a conversation. They practice listening closely, building on another person's thinking, disagreeing respectfully, and revising their ideas. Through Torah, tefilah, holidays, Jewish community, ritual, and Israel, students consider how generations of Jews have made meaning - and begin adding their own voices to that conversation.

At PJA, we do not simply teach students what Jewish texts mean. We teach them how to wrestle with what they might mean.
 

Know Yourself. Engage Others. Act.

Middle School Jewish Studies is organized around Hillel's enduring questions: If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?

Students bring increasingly sophisticated skills to Jewish texts, history, Israel, ethics, identity, and contemporary questions. They learn to examine evidence, distinguish text from interpretation, encounter multiple perspectives, listen seriously to disagreement, and develop ideas of their own.

Across Grades 6-8, the questions become increasingly personal and consequential: Who am I becoming? What do I owe other people? How do I engage thoughtfully with complexity? What does Jewish tradition ask of me?

By Eighth Grade, students put their learning into action through Capstone service, study of Modern Israel through multiple narratives, Shoah study, contemporary “Hot Topics” through Jewish texts, and a culminating drash connecting Jewish learning with lived experience.

Students leave PJA not simply knowing more about Judaism, but knowing how to think Jewishly, engage thoughtfully, and turn learning into action.