It’s the end of an era for Holy Blossom Temple’s high school, which is closing this month, but the start of a novel venture that will see the venerable Reform congregation open a supplemental high school with its Conservative neighbours, a first for Toronto.
The Reform temple has decided to close its high school program, which started in the late 1800s and was called senior school. In its place, Holy Blossom is joining forces with two nearby Conservative synagogues, Beth Tzedec and Beth Sholom Congregations to open the Jewish Teen Experience Midtown next fall, said Rabbi Jordan Helfman, assistant rabbi at Holy Blossom.
“Enrolment has been lower over the past couple of years than we would have liked,” Rabbi Helfman said. “And one thing we know from our kids is that their friends aren’t based on synagogue boundaries.”
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Currently between 20 and 25 students in grades 8 to 10 are enrolled in Holy Blossom’s high school program, which meets after school one day a week. Of those students, 10 are enrolled in the Grade 10 confirmation program, which culminates in an Israel trip, in alternate years.
The new program will be project-based, with three semesters per year, each hosted by a different synagogue. Among the proposals for courses are a 3-D modelling class where students will design and create ritual objects using special software and a 3-D printer, a class entitled “Sex and the Texts,” as well as current events, drama and music. The project is assisted by a startup grant from UJA Federation of Greater Toronto’s Koschitzky Centre for Education.
The courses would not be eligible for high school academic credits.
While the synagogues belong to different denominations, it shouldn’t be an obstacle, said Daniel Silverman, director of education and family programming at Beth Tzedec Congregation. “We’re not formally teaching theology,” he said. “We want to help them explore Jewish texts, make a stronger connection to Israel… we want them to be more exposed to the Hebrew language.”
It is the first time in Toronto that synagogues from different denominations have created a school, but the model is common in larger American cities, he said.
Holy Blossom will maintain a confirmation program for its own students, which will be taught in the third semester.
Enrolment in after-school programs and confirmation classes has dropped over the years, as students flock to extracurricular activities and parents are ambivalent about making after-school attendance mandatory, Rabbi Helfman said.
While the confirmation program was once the highlight of the Reform movement’s educational experience, it has been eclipsed by the popularity of the bar and bat mitzvah, he said.
Holy Blossom had previously tried to form a school with other Reform synagogues, but the distance between them was an obstacle, and in the end, a neighbourhood program seemed like the best bet.
Neither Beth Sholom nor Beth Tzedec had a formal high school education program for their teens. Beth Sholom is a member of the Canadian Council of Conservative Synagogues (CCCS), which runs a high school program at Adath Israel Congregation, but in fact, none of its students attended there, said Rabbi Janice Elster, director of engagement and family learning at Beth Sholom.
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“We find geography is more important for the way families operate than synagogue affiliation,” she said. “We’re hoping to do something new and creative that’s also more convenient for our families.”
Beth Tzedec had long wanted to re-start its high school program, but “trying to go it alone was going to be difficult,” said Silverman.
The new partnership will give all three synagogues the resources and critical mass of students needed to make the program a success, he said.
While registration for the program hasn’t begun, it’s anticipated that between 40 and 50 students will enrol, Silverman said.
The neighbourhood approach is also being studied by a group of shuls in the city’s north end, said Cantor Eliezer Kirshblum, director of the high school program at Adath Israel. Talks are just beginning, but if the synagogues were to join forces, it would allow the program, which now attracts about 20 students, to offer a wider range of classes and more social opportunities, he said.
