Jewish Enrichment Center

Kids run the classroom at the Jewish Enrichment Center (JEC). The center believes that when children are cocreators of dynamic Jewish life, it revolutionizes their learning. JEC was started seven years ago by Chicago parents who wanted to build an afterschool Jewish learning program as high quality as their children’s secular schools. They didn’t want just an upgrade to Hebrew school; they wanted something new that inspired children and families to recognize their power to change Judaism and the world. Instead of presenting Judaism as static, JEC lets children ask questions and develop the knowledge and confidence to influence Judaism itself. The school is a laboratory—open to experimentation, disruption, and innovation.

JEC offers full-service afterschool learning five days a week, full days of Jewish enrichment when school is closed, one-week camps, and summer programming. This makes it logistically convenient for parents, but even more important, JEC provides families with a personalized connection to Judaism that teaches children text skills, confidence, and creativity. JEC’s educational process for children’s Torah exploration is set, but educators “step off the ledge” with children three or four times a year, letting children’s questions lead their learning. What does this look like in practice? All children, ages 3 to 12, explore the same theme, for 8 to 10 weeks, diving into Jewish text with peers through play, conversation, sculpture, collage, dress up, and dance. Hebrew learning is integrated into the themes. Children reach their own interpretation of the theme through an extended, creative project based on their questions. Three times a year, JEC puts up a new giant floor-to-ceiling installation of children’s ideas about the theme. It’s public, so that adults can see their creation and gather inspiration from their ideas about Judaism. JEC is developing confident, empathetic children and families with the knowledge, skills, and capacity to be cocreators of Judaism. It’s inspiring other educational centers with its model, and it trains educators on how to partner with children so that a child’s individuality matters to Judaism itself. JEC shows that what’s unusual can still be acceptable, and its classroom technique is a success for Jewish education and enrichment.