Vision for Conservative Early Childhood Programs: A Journey Guide

what we teach in class with real life events. We must reach out to families and help them
to connect the Jewish learning in the classroom with Jewish family life at home.
Jewish early childhood programs need to reexamine the relationships that they have with
families. Marvell Ginsberg (1992) reports that early childhood Jewish education “is
aimed at creating a healthy cadre of self-accepting, knowledgeable, Jewish children; but
perhaps even more important, positive parents.”
Programs must find ways to provide Jewish education for parents and help them to
understand the importance their actions have on their children. Parents whose child
participates in Jewish early childhood education and who engage in Jewish education
opportunities for themselves strengthen their own Jewish identity and practice.
Low-impact strategies:
• Create a welcoming community.
• Offer nonthreatening orientation programs, informal parent meetings and social
gatherings.
• Encourage families to host events, including model Shabbat dinners and Sukkot
celebrations, in their homes for other EC families.
• Send home educational materials, background information, and music.
• Arrange for clergy to become familiar with families and make themselves
accessible to them.
High-impact strategies:
• Offer infant and child care for working Jewish families.
• Develop relationships between the EC program and such Jewish organizations as
B’nai Brith, Hadassah, ORT, and any of the synagogue’s social groups.
• Offer synagogue membership free or at a reduced rate.
• Set up a lending library of great Jewish books for the parents.
• Ask the synagogue’s clergy and its early childhood staff and outside Jewish
educators to provide educational programs to the parents.
Vision for Conservative Early Childhood Programs: A Journey Guide
USCJ Department of Education
Maxine Handelman
Handelman@uscj.org
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