With people across America and the world uniting to demand racial equality and justice, the Jewish world remains divided as parts of our community struggle with the question of whether we should be involved and, if so, how. At a nonprofit Jewish media company, this question is especially pronounced.
With institutions across the country shuttered and school administrators forced to confront unprecedented education challenges, a global non-profit organization has led the way in helping Jewish day schools navigate through the abrupt “education from a distance” reality.
Watch Noam Weissman SVP, Education at OpenDor Media discuss the way we are working to help educators navigate remote learning by providing tools - i24NEWS English
Schools are doing an extraordinary job coming up with online content, reinventing ways to connect with their students and their families. They have to — all of a sudden, all the conventional ways of connecting suddenly, shockingly have become impossible.
With schools shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, parents are turning to online resources to educate their children from home. In an effort to ensure ongoing Jewish education, one of those resources is OpenDor Media, a nonprofit that creates Jewish educational content via its YouTube channel, Unpacked.
I recently devoured Bob Iger’s new book, The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons learned from 15 years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company. The book is abundant with powerful leadership lessons and a behind-the-scenes look at the incredible growth of the Walt Disney Company...
Young Jews, like young people everywhere, are spending increasing amounts of time online. It may seem unfathomable to anyone from an older generation, but U.S. teens go online an average of six hours daily — not including schoolwork.
Few things propel a company into strategic planning like a global market shift. To survive and succeed in the new digital era, businesses around the world and across all industries are working hard to reinvent themselves.
I’ll never forget the day in December 2015 when our CEO casually walked by my desk and said, “We’re talking tonight?” “No,” I said, bemused, seeing nothing on my calendar. He nodded his head, indicating “Yes,” and walked away. That was an atypical exchange, so I knew something was brewing. Evening came around, the phone rang, and the next thing I knew I was being promoted to COO.
Israel-based Unpacked for Educators has launched the first of its kind, international, inter-denominational program comprising fifty schools from seven countries across the world including Australia.
The Weber School is among 50 schools from seven countries that are part of a new international, inter-denominational and virtual Israel education program that helps educators share ideas. “Currently, there isn’t one unified, shared language or media in how to approach nuanced, Israel education,” according to a press release. “Many educators are essentially in their own silo, left up to their own devices and technological prowess to develop Israel education curricula and coursework to engage and connect with their students. This leads educators to constantly ‘reinvent the wheel’ as they work out the right approach and materials for each and every issue.”
Along with the foundation of reading, writing, and arithmetic — plus science, technology, engineering, and more advanced mathematics — today’s Jewish students need a good grounding in Israeli history and current events, because inevitably they will face anti-Israel hostility when they get to college. A lot of effort is put into training North American high school students in Israel advocacy, a good and useful skill. But it does not necessarily give them a firm grasp of the nuances from all sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
“I was fed a huge amount of lies about Israel my entire life,” Seth Rogen said in his now infamous interview with podcaster Marc Maron. These words hit me, a Jewish history teacher, like a ton of bricks, far more than any of the other offensive or misinformed comments he made elsewhere in the podcast. Here’s why: he could not have been wrong on that point. For Rogen to express the various views he espoused on Maron’s podcast, he had to have been grotesquely misinformed on a range of Israeli and Zionist issues.
After listening to Seth Rogen discuss Israel and Judaism in his interview on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast, we spent the first two days reading the somewhat-predictable responses. From the right, some were calling Rogen self-hating, ignorant and uneducated. From the extreme left, he was being lauded as a new Jewish hero.
Two weeks ago we received some interesting information from an organization known as “Unpacked for Educators” about a new program designed to help educators in Jewish schools teach about Israel. At the time we received the email we didn't realize that the individual coordinating the program is none other than Avi Posen, formerly of Gray Academy, now residing in Israel.
A group of New York Jewish schools have joined the first global network of educators on the issue of Israel. Up to this point there hasn’t been one unified, shared language or media in how to approach nuanced, Israel education. Many educators are essentially, in their own silo, left up to their own devices and technological prowess to develop Israel education curricula and coursework to engage and connect with their students.
In celebration of Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day, some 13,400 students representing more than 200 middle schools and high schools from around the world are competing this week in OpenDor Media's Global Trivia Challenge.
A student of the Moscow Jewish school No. 1621 "The Tree of Life" took 3rd place in the global quiz on the history of Israel. The competition was attended by 13,400 students from around the world. The first 2 places in the quiz were taken by schoolchildren from the USA.
I am tired of attending gripe sessions about Israel-Diaspora tensions without hearing constructive suggestions to build unity. In We Stand Divided: The Rift Between American Jews and Israel, Daniel Gordis analyzes the misfires between increasingly universalistic Isaiahan ...
Jerusalem U announced Sept. 4 that their online Jewish Education resource Unpacked for Educators, will kick off its Unpacked for Educators Partner School Research Initiative for the 2019-2020 school year.
Unpacked for Educators, a digital resource for Jewish educators from Jerusalem U, has launched the Unpacked for Educators Partner School Research Initiative. This research initiative, which will run during the 2019-2020 school year, will help the Unpacked for Educators team...
An Israeli educational organization is calling for November to be recognized as Israel History Month, with the goal of engaging young Jews in Israel's rich history. May is more commonly associated with Israel, given that the State was founded during that month.
More than 70 years after its founding, Israel maintains its character as a land of immigrants, returning to the land of their ancestors. Despite the fact that most of the country’s residents have now been born on Israeli soil, it continues to be defined by the diversity of its people, with individual communities and segments of society existing within the greater mosaic of modern Israel.
Maybe you have vague Tu B’Shvat memories like mine. Little plastic bags filled with hard brown, buksar (the yiddish word for carob) that could crack your teeth if you bit down too quickly. Perhaps some nuts and raisins (likely grown in California) thrown in too. If you were really lucky, you had a Tu B’shvat seder with opportunities to sample the seven special fruits of Israel.
Natan Sharansky was recently asked in an interview if it bothers him that, not too long ago, he was a famous man meeting with presidents, dignitaries, and celebrities, and now, many young people do not even know who he is. He responded, “It doesn’t bother me that people don’t know who I am. What bothers me is that people don’t know who they are.”
The new video series, “The Jewish Story Explained,” which debuts June 29 from OpenDoor Media, delivers engaging, informative and truthful content directly to young Jews. Parents and teachers can feel confident that the 42-episode series, recorded with high production value and input of trusted experts, will help the young generation connect more deeply with their heritage...
The first fifteen episodes (season one) will be released on the June 29th premiere date, and will cover ancient Israel from 586 BCE until the Jewish dispersal in 1,000 CE.
Сериал под названием «Разъясненная еврейская история» (The Jewish Story Explained), созданный OpenDor Media в сотрудничестве с Unpacked Media, охватывает 3 тысячелетия еврейской истории, и состоит из 42 эпизодов по 10 минут. «Мы снимаем сериал о еврейской истории. В общих знаниях много пробелов. Здесь мы просто заполняем пробелы», – цитирует Jerusalem Post слова создателей в тизере сериала.
Uma série do YouTube abordando 3.000 anos de história judaica estreia na plataforma de compartilhamento de vídeos on-line em 29 de junho. A série intitulada The Jewish Story Explained, (A história judaica explicada) criada pela OpenDor Media (anteriormente Jerusalém U) em colaboração com a Unpacked Media, abordará três milênios da história judaica ao longo de 42 episódios, com duração de 10 minutos cada.
According to the most recent Pew Research Study on American Jewish life, American Millennial Jews (ages 18-34) are increasingly disconnecting from traditional Jewish institutions. Additionally, as age decreases, so does identification with Judaism.
JerusalemU, a non-profit media company that aims to connect with young Jews through educational films and videos, is launching a new YouTube channel called “Unpacked,” the organization said in a press release. Videos cover complex, nuanced topics from Israel’s history to Israel’s start-up achievements.
New documentary follows three Israeli innovators applying blue-and-white innovations to help other countries deal with water stress.
A screening of the movie “Sustainable Nation” will be shown at Congregation Beth Shalom on Jan. 12 at noon. Directed by Micah Smith, “Sustainable Nation” tells the story of three indivuduals and their efforts to bring water to drought-stricken regions of the planet.
From a documentary about innovative Israeli efforts to solve water supply problems to a short film about the contributions of Jewish composers to popular Christmas songs, the Sonoma County Jewish Film Festival will present a wide range of Jewish-interest films from Oct. 10 to Nov. 12 at the Rialto Cinemas in Sebastopol.
Temple Beth Tikvah in Greenacres hosted a screening and discussion of the Jerusalem U documentary, “Israel Inside: How a Small Nation Makes a Big Difference” at 7 p.m. on July 28.
If you’re a member of the media and would like to get in touch, please send us a note.
By using this website, you agree to our use of cookies. We use cookies to provide you with a great experience and to help our website run effectively.
