JTS and Pardes Partner to Provide a Joint Rabbinical and Experiential Educator Degree
Contact:
Beth Mayerowitz
JTS
Email: bemayerowitz@jtsa.edu
Aviva Lauer Golbert
Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies
Email: avivag@pardes.org.il
(JERUSALEM, Israel & NEW YORK CITY, NY– March 12, 2019) The Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies (www.pardes.org.il) and The Jewish Theological Seminary (www.jtsa.edu) have announced a new joint program which will prepare students to be both rabbis and experiential Jewish educators. As part of this collaboration, students will receive a master’s degree in Jewish Education from The William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education of JTS, ordination from The Rabbinical School of JTS, and a Certificate of Jewish Studies and Experiential Education from Pardes.
Set to launch in fall 2019, the program will allow JTS rabbinical students to enroll in a new track of the Pardes Experiential Educators Program (PEEP). The year at Pardes will be spent in Jerusalem and will count toward rabbinical studies at JTS, making the joint program a six-year rabbinical and master’s degree program instead of the seven years these two degrees would normally involve.
“Pardes began partnering with The William Davidson Graduate School three years ago in training experiential Jewish educators. We are thrilled to expand our partnership with JTS to include The Rabbinical School, so that we may jointly train and ordain passionate, skilled, and invested experiential educator-rabbis,” said Aviva Lauer Golbert, Director of the Pardes Center for Jewish Educators.
“We are thrilled to be expanding our partnership with Pardes,” says Bill Robinson, dean of The William Davidson School. “For the past three years we’ve had great success working with Pardes to train our students with a focus on experiential education. We’re excited to open this program up to our rabbinical students.”
Rabbi Daniel Nevins, Pearl Resnick Dean of The Rabbinical School and Dean of the Division of Religious Leadership, adds that “to be able to further enhance our rabbinical students’ experience by offering them the opportunity to pursue an MA in Jewish Education as well as a Certificate of Jewish Studies and Experiential Education from Pardes is a wonderful way for them to deepen their education.”
The Pardes Experiential Educators Program is designed to enrich the career foundation of experiential Jewish educators through classical Jewish text study, deep Jewish literacy, professional seminars, and active participation in the dynamic and diverse community of Pardes. Students will participate in seminars on Jewish history, spirituality, conflict resolution, mentoring, and career coaching.
The PEEP+JTS Rabbinical School joint program is the newest addition to the many existing partnerships that Pardes has with educational institutions, such as Hebrew College, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, and Yeshivat Maharat. Pardes continues to cultivate partnerships with rabbinical seminaries of all denominations.
To learn more and register: http://www.pardes.org.il/jtsrab
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The Pardes Center for Jewish Educators, a branch of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies (www.pardes.org.il) in Jerusalem, trains and empowers Jewish studies teachers and experiential Jewish educators and leaders to serve as knowledgeable, skilled, reflective, and passionate professionals in diverse Jewish settings.
The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is a preeminent institution of Jewish higher education, training thoughtful, innovative leaders—rabbis, cantors, educators, lay leaders, and scholars—who strengthen our communities with a vision of Judaism that is deeply grounded in the Jewish past and thoroughly engaged with contemporary society. JTS also provides high-caliber lifelong learning and professional development to our alumni, adult learners, and Jewish communities throughout North America. Through its Library, JTS preserves and makes accessible to students and scholars throughout the world the greatest collection of Judaica in the Western Hemisphere.
