What is Community?!

Shanah Tovah!! Today was the second day of religious school and we tackled the topic of community. Jewish community and the internet is the theme of our class for the year, so we wanted to begin with a basic discussion of community.

So, we asked the kids -- What is community? Think about what it means and tweet your definition.

Some responses included:

• my friends and family and the enviorment
• community is all the people who support each other in the same general area

All of the students came up with very similar definitions -- that community has to do with people coming together in a common place. Some definitions had additional clauses dealing with purpose, values or responsibilities.

We discussed the Jewish community, and how it exists on many levels like national religious movements, federations in cities, individual congregations, and even our classroom community.

We then asked -- Does Jewish community exist outside the synagogue? How do Jews find community if they don't affiliate with a movement, or cannot afford synagogue dues? How can we use the internet to find Jewish community? We had a really great discussion.

I am lucky enough to be friends with an internet Jewish celebrity named Patrick Aleph, who is doing new and exciting things in the world of Judaism on the internet. He recently pioneered a new website called One Shul which exists as an online user run synagogue; a virtual Jewish community. Check out the website and watch this video to get an introduction to One Shul, which launched just a week ago.

I have talked to Patrick extensively about modern Judaism and ideas for our class and he was kind enough to make us a video after his band played a show in Memphis last night. He will be skyping with us in future classes and we are so lucky to have him as a resource.



The students are going to think about his assignment this week and will work on their responses in class next time. We will post their responses on the blog and link to Indie Yeshivah.

Thanks for reading and Happy New Year! We are trying to get laptops for each student so everyone can participate equally in class. If you have a laptop you can loan us for Sunday mornings please e-mail Debbie at kaplande@health.missouri.edu