The Delegation from ZFU and JECU for the First Time Took Part in the WZO Educational Conference in Germany

Beginning on the 16th till the 18th of December 2018, a conference for Hebrew teachers and education envoys living in Western Europe called “Alef-Bet” was held in Frankfurt on Main, Germany.

From the CIS countries, only a delegation from Ukraine participated in the conference as part of the JEC Director N. Bakulina, Executive Director of the ZFU E. Zaslavskaya, teachers O. Yakovleva, K. Erofeeva and L. Adzhiashvili

At the same time, in three different classrooms, lectures and events were held on the topics of education, problems and innovations in the study of the Hebrew language in the diaspora countries.

A special place in the conference program was occupied by Amichay Pardo’s lecture-reflection on the history of the Jewish family and the need of intergenerational transfer of the history of your family, about what we can, should and can not or don’t want to tell our children about ourselves.

Also in the program of the conference, there was an Amikai Pardo’s performance “Korchak – ten matchboxes”. Amichai Pardo, an actor of the Tel Aviv youth theater Orna Porat, appeared in front of the audience in the role of Janusz Korczak. In an unusually didactic, easy and touching performance that involved almost all.

The conference program also included lectures on Hebrew poetry, how to teach a child to learn the language independently with the help of interactive programs installed on I-Pad, etc.

Traditionally, the participants of the conference took a tour of the Jewish quarter of the town, as well as a memorial ceremony, which took place where the largest synagogue was located before the war.

Now, a new building of the Jewish Museum has been built near this place, and the square itself, where the Frankfurt synagogue once stood and the old Jewish cemetery located nearby, making up a single memorial complex.

For the Ukrainian delegation, this conference was of particular importance. With about 30 Jewish schools in Ukraine, Hebrew is taught in the universities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Odessa, in almost every city where the Jewish community works, there is an ulpan, Ukrainian teachers took part in the activities of the department of education of the WZO for the first time.

A start has been made, contacts have been established, and the experience gained during these three fruitful days will undoubtedly be continued in new projects and programs aimed at developing formal and non-formal Jewish education in Ukraine.