TORONTO — Kinneret Dubowitz is sometimes called “Morah Yoga” by her little students at Torah Tots Preschool. The name is probably even more unusual than Dubowitz’s area of expertise, at least in the context of an Orthodox school.
Kinneret Dubowitz demonstrates an “airplane” pose at Torah Tots Preschool to tie in with the theme of going on a trip. [Frances Kraft photo]
For the past four years, the 35-year-old dance therapist has been teaching yoga and creative movement once a week at the preschool, housed at Chabad of Markham.
She teaches the same type of class once a week at Netivot HaTorah Day School, where she is known as Morah Kinneret, and has also taught at Gan Shalom Preschool and Mesorah Montessori, another Orthodox school. In the summer, she works at Chabad Lubavitch Day Camp and Neshama Theatre Troupe’s summer program. She also teaches yoga to women in private classes and runs Jewish-focused wellness retreats.
In an interview at her home – over a cup of organic kukicha tea, a type of green tea derived from twigs – Dubowitz discussed her work and the journey that led her to integrate yoga and Orthodox Judaism.
A dancer and competitive gymnast as a youngster growing up in Toronto, the South African-born Dubowitz became more religiously observant after participating at age 19 in Livnot U’Lehibanot, a year-long volunteer program in Israel, and studying comparative religion studies at the University of Toronto.
She was certified as a yoga teacher in 1996 by the Toronto School of Flow Yoga, and she received her master’s in creative arts and dance movement therapy in 2000 from Lesley College in Boston.
Dubowitz worked as a dance therapist in the United States before returning to Toronto at age 28 with her American-born husband, Menachem Feuer, who teaches at the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto.
For Orthodox yoga students, Dubowitz believes “it’s important to have a religious person teaching them.” Chanting, for example, can be an issue if names of Hindu gods are used, she noted.
Yoga per se is not incompatible with Orthodoxy, “as long as it’s done with boundaries,” Dubowitz said.
At Torah Tots, the mother of two boys, ages five and seven, integrates school themes into creative movement, often coming up with new yoga poses or adapting existing ones to fit the themes.
“On Purim, we become the shalach manos baskets,” she said. “We become the licorice that bends, the pretzels that cross our legs, the popcorn that pops.”
Dubowitz, who wrote a thesis about the integration of Jewish education and kinesthetic learning, said that she was the type of kid who “had a lot of trouble sitting at a desk.”
Although she did well in school, she found it frustrating, she said.
In addition to providing kinesthetic learning, Dubowitz believes she is helping to break stereotypes. “I think it’s important for kids to see Orthodox Jewish women who are connected to their bodies.”
She said that the long skirt she wears does not restrict her movement or prevent her from “crawling around with the kids.”
She hopes that because the children have fun in her class, they will associate body movement with fun and will also have positive memories of their Jewish schooling.
Yoga is “an incredible balance between structure and expression,” Dubowitz said. “There’s a lot of containment and a lot of freedom.”
A lesson from the teacher: “The body has wisdom, and not every child learns just cerebrally. Many children need to use the wisdom of the body in order to engage with the world around them. Exposure to a variety of motor experiences is really important.”