Congregation Beth Or is strongly committed to providing a meaningful and well-rounded educational experience for its children and youth. Our youngest learners receive early exposure to Hebrew and enjoy stories, crafts and songs for holiday celebrations. In kindergarten children begin weekly Sunday morning classes in Hebrew and Jewish studies. The program for primary and intermediate students is substantive, stimulating and relevant to the issues of our day. Class work is enriched with music, art,
dramatics, field trips and service projects.

Students also have a supplementary Hebrew class for one year and then work with a tutor to prepare for their Bar/Bat Mitzvah service. Students in grades 8-10 study with the rabbi and other faculty members in a 3- year cycle of courses leading to Confirmation. One indicator of our success in making the Religious School an important part of our young people's lives is that many of our teenagers choose to serve as classroom aides for younger students.

In addition to the Sunday School program, Beth Or provides a variety of opportunities for children and families to participate in a rich community life. At holidays there are children's programs during adult services and family services for all to attend
together. Generations share in monthly family Shabbat dinners and services, and, also once a month, Children's Shabbat activities are held concurrently with the adult service. Family education events are offered throughout the year, and children and youth may also participate in a variety of mitzvah activities of the congregation as their ages allow, from bringing items for collections for the needy to working with adults in a soup kitchen or Habitat for Humanity project. Our young people may sing or play a musical instrument in a children's choir and attend denominational youth conferences and a summer camp.

At Beth Or, religion is about people. The ethical and spiritual resources of Judaism instruct and inspire us as we seek to live more intentional, compassionate lives and to find solutions for the pressing problems of our community and world.

We are giving our children roots in Hebrew language and the history, culture and religious traditions of the Jewish people. Our stress is on human freedom and responsibility and on using our minds and hearts to appropriate traditions in ways that are meaningful today. Our students learn to approach other religious and secular viewpoints with openness and respect, and to articulate their own developing ideas and questions about life's meaning with self-respect. They feel connected to the Jewish community and committed to the welfare of humankind. The education we offer is education for living, and it is action-oriented, through the production of art and writings that express students' own interpretations of what they are learning, through good deeds that enact their concern for the earth and its inhabitants, through opportunities to direct their own learning, and in students' undertaking teaching and leadership roles.

Goals: (1) To familiarize students with the history, culture and religion of the Jewish people so they may participate fully in Jewish life. (2) To enable students to identify with and appropriate their Jewish heritage in ways that are personally meaningful. (3) To help students develop a progressive Jewish approach to spiritual development, including
relationship skills, that will enable them to cope resourcefully with the challenges they will meet in life and to realize an authentic, moral, purposeful, loving and fulfilled selfhood.

Subjects of study will include:
Grades Pre-K-K: Jewish family customs for Shabbat, holidays, identity and life cycle events. Family life. Cooperation. Jewish holidays. Bible stories.

Grade 2: The synagogue's origin, function, activities and personnel. Life in Bible times. Life in Israel today. Introduction to the Bible. Bible stories. Holidays.

Grade 3: Life cycle celebrations. Biblical archeology. Biblical historical narratives. Holidays.

Grade 4: Jewish heroes. Personality ideals. Prophetic and wisdom literature of the Bible. Contemporary literature regarding wise and ethical living. Holidays.

Grade 5: Jewish immigration to the United States. Family histories. Jewish communities around the world today. Jewish folktales. Psalms. Holidays.

Grade 6: Zionism and the modern state of Israel. The American Jewish community and Israel. Roots and wings - reflections on students' personal identities - including their Jewish heritage, and their life goals. Leadership and decision-making in the synagogue. Biblical and historical writings about Israel. Modern Israeli literature. Holidays.

Grade 7: Comparative Judaism. The American Jewish experience, including the Colonial and Revolutionary eras, slavery and the Civil War, immigration, and Jewish responses to moral, political and social problems. Group study of Torah portions for B'nai Mitzvah services. Holidays.

Grades 8, 9 and 10: (On a three-year cycle) Comparative Judaism. Comparative religion and trends in religious life today. The Holocaust and its aftermath. Jewish resources and current issues. Human development and communal action to nurture and honor life at all stages. Ethics through film. Holidays.

Goals: (1)To prepare students to read the Torah and liturgy, culminating in B'nai Mitzvah services. (2) To lay the foundation for ongoing study of Hebrew sources, past and present, and for modern conversational Hebrew.

Grades Pre-K-2: Students will learn to recognize and print Hebrew letters and know their sounds. They will learn a selection of the first 100 words pertaining to Jewish holidays, Shabbat, symbols and ritual objects, Israel, Torah and moral values. They will begin modern conversational Hebrew with greetings, introductions and the like.

Grades 3-5: Students will read significant pieces from both traditional and non-theistic liturgies, such as the Shema, blessings over the Torah and the Four Questions. They will also read selected biblical passages and ethical stories in Hebrew. They will practice reading, writing and conversation in modern Hebrew.

Grades 6-7: Students will learn to read without vowels and with the trope (cantillation), and they will master liturgical and Torah readings for participation in B'nai Mitzvah services.

Grades 8-10: Confirmation students will continue developing their reading skills by studying "Ethics of the Sages" in Hebrew. They will also sample contemporary Israeli literature.