Oakville’s Shaarei-Beth El Congregation has a new director of education.

Cheryl Wise and Rabbi Stephen Wise

Cheryl Wise has a bachelor of arts in Jewish studies from York University, a master’s degree in Jewish education and a family education certificate from Hebrew College in Brookline, Mass. As well, she is certified by the Reform movement as a Reform Jewish educator (RJE).

As it happens, she is also married to Rabbi Stephen Wise, spiritual leader of Shaarei-Beth El, with whom she will be working in her new, part-time position.

A former co-director of education at a religious school in Florida (2006-2007); a director of education and assistant principal at a Manhattan religious school (2001-2005); and a family educator at a congregation in Massachusetts (1999-2000), she also was educational co-ordinator for Birthright Israel at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the 2000-2001 academic year.

Although Wise’s background in Jewish education, and particularly family education, made her a natural candidate for the job at Shaarei-Beth El, she encouraged the synagogue to undertake a national search before she was hired.

She takes over from former educational director Ran Salamon, who will become co-director of attendance and discipline at the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto’s Kimel Family Education Centre in Vaughan as of Sept. 1.

“Stephen and I see the school and synagogue as being one,” said Wise, referring to her husband. Their goal is to create a congregation of learners, where “everybody feels that Jewish education can be fun, engaging and lively for all ages.”

Rabbi Wise, like his wife, also has a background in education, and teaches the high schoolers.

A Toronto native who met her husband when they were counsellors at Camp Shalom, Wise said they always dreamed of working together, as they did in New York, when he was a rabbinic intern at her school.

The young couple – Rabbi Wise, 35, and Cheryl, 33, have a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a two-year-old– are working together to create a new family education program at the Reform congregation, which has 120 member families.

In the last decade or so in Canada, the importance of family education has been increasingly recognized by Jewish schools, Wise said.

“A lot of the values that kids get are from the home,” she said. As well, she added, referring to studies she has read, many parents have had negative Jewish educational experiences.

“How can we recreate positive feelings and get the parents on the same page as the kids?” she asked. “Kids have to see that [Jewish education] is important to their parents, too. That can only be done when parents and kids are learning together.”

She noted that many American supplementary Jewish schools have moved to family education-only models.

In the past, Shaarei-Beth El has invited parents in for some school programs, Wise said.

Now, she would like to move to more “inclusive” programming that would involve both parents and children, such as a human-size board game with activities related to the curriculum, as well as Shabbat morning programs.

“You have to make sure it’s a worthwhile experience for the parents as well,” Wise said. “I think there’s a lot of opportunity here for growth and to change some of the attitudes people have toward Jewish education.”

Wise, who has worked part-time for almost two years at Hamilton’s McMaster University writing online curriculum for midwifery, said that she always wanted to go back into Jewish education, but, “living in Oakville [with a Jewish population of just under 1,300], there hasn’t been that much opportunity for it.”

Her new position will mark the first time she has worked in a small synagogue, she said.

Living in a small community is very different from living in a centre with multiple Jewish resources, Wise noted. “You can’t even get a challah here.”

She buys challah, and kosher meat for synagogue barbecues, in Hamilton, which is only about half an hour away by car.

In a small community, the synagogue “truly becomes the centre of Jewish life,” she said.

Shaarei-Beth El’s school has 60 students from pre-kindergarten through Grade 12. Students in grades 3 through 7 attend twice a week, while others attend once a week.