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Our Religious School
Achduth Vesholom's Religious School offers comprehensive educational programming for children from preschool (age three years) through 12th grade. Our objectives include teaching our students Jewish values, traditions, history, heritage, and way of life. We want to create a meaningful Jewish experience for our children so that Judaism becomes a positive intellectual and emotional experience. We also want to strengthen and reinforce Jewish feelings, associations and fellowship.
Basic Hebrew is part of the comprehensive religious school program. Additional Hebrew classes are required for bar/bat mitzvah candidates. Confirmation marks an educational milestone for young people in the 10th grade. Post-confirmation classes are offered to students in grades 11 and 12.
A recent dimension that has proven particularly successful is our high school evening program. Students in public school grades 9 through 12 come together on Sunday evenings for dinner and social time followed by a choice of classes they find relevant to their lives as Jewish teens and young adults. The school's program of field trips, Confirmation class trips, intermediate and junior high school retreats, and teen trips to Israel has broadened our students' view of the Jewish world; as has our close association with Goldman Union Camp Institute (named for the late Myron S. Goldman, former Temple president).
Our 157-year-old tradition of meaningful Jewish education in Fort Wayne has been fostered by the hard work and dedication of teachers selected from our congregation, our rabbis and a core of professional educators.
New! View webpages of all classes.
Please click HERE to download current Religious School forms.
A message from our rabbi: “If…”
Torah study is a mitzvah, an obligation incumbent upon all Jews, including but not limited to school-aged children. As such, there is a blessing over Torah study, a blessing which follows the formula for all blessings over mitzvot: “Baruch ata adonai eloheinu melech haolam asher kideshanu bemitzvotav vetzivanu…,” which means, “Blessed are You, Eternal Our G-d, Who Sanctifies us with Your commandments and has commanded us…” In this case, the blessing concludes, “la-asok bedivrei torah -- to engage in the words of Torah.”
The mitzvah is not just to read words of Torah, nor is it to memorize those words. What we are commanded to do is to bring our thoughts, feelings, intuitions and life experiences repeatedly to the texts of our heritage. We are to engage actively in the study of Torah. We are to come away from a study session with more than information. Our ongoing search is not just for knowledge but, more importantly, for wisdom.
Everyone knows that wisdom comes in large part from life experiences. Remarkably, our Jewish heritage enables us to learn not just from our own life experiences but also from the personal and communal experiences of Jews who have lived in countless times and places. So much of Torah study is building on the past, or in the words of our sages, “standing on the shoulders of giants.”
Here at Congregation Achduth Vesholom, we stand on the shoulders of giants in our own community, as well as through the texts we study. This year, we celebrate 160 years as a Jewish congregation in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Just as we have much to learn from our ancestors whose words have been passed down to us, so too are we blessed with members of our congregation who are able to share with us their own wisdom, in part by telling us our own story, the story of Achduth Vesholom, Unity and Peace.
This year, we are making a point of including the stories of Achduth Vesholom among the stories of our people, from which we draw wisdom. May we grow in wisdom by engaging in conversation with members of our congregation who have tales to share with us. May
we, in turn, add our own experiences, our own insights, our own perspectives to the growing wisdom of our congregation and of the Jewish people. In our school, and in every part of our lives, may 5769 be a year of engaging actively in the study of Torah, and in so doing, to keep them alive and relevant
Rabbi Marla Joy Subeck Spanjer
A message from our ReligiousSchool Committee Chair:
My name is Jaki Schreier and on behalf of the staff and teachers at Temple Achduth Vesholom, I extend a warm welcome to all of our new students and their families, as well as our returning ones.
Summer is behind us and the Religious School Committee is enthusiastic to begin a new school year full of learning and fun. The primary goal of the Religious School Committee is to assure that our students are receiving the best religious education possible. We will constantly be reviewing, revising, and making necessary policy recommendations to the Temple Board to ensure that our format is both engaging and dynamic.
Another objective of the Committee is to improve communications among educators, parents, students, the director of education and Rabbi Katz. Please watch for emails, newsletters, postcards, correspondence in the Temple Bulletin and KESHER to arrive home regularly.
I encourage everyone to actively participate in your child’s religious education. We welcome you to attend our regular Religious School Committee meetings held the first Thursday of the month at 6:30 p.m. in the library. You also may consider joining your child in the classroom and attending the Family Education sessions that will now be held at all grades up to High School. Remember by participating, you show your children how important Jewish education is to you.
I am not only a Religious School teacher myself, but also a mother to three children who all attend classes at the Temple. When I am driving home from Religious School, I engage my children in discussion on what they learned that day. It helps them to inter-personalize the lesson. Consequently, my children enjoy Religious School and can connect it to how to live as a Jew.
Please feel free to contact me during the school year with any questions, concerns or issues that have arisen. Obviously, I would enjoy hearing about all the positives that you are experiencing in both your child’s Religious School setting and with what they are sharing with you at home.
I truly look forward to working with you, the committee, the teachers, Charlene and Rabbi. I few all remember to put the children and our Jewish values first, I know that we will have an exciting and fun-filled educational year.
Jaki Schreier
Religious School Committee Chair
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