JCRC Provides Seminar to Local Educators

Federation’s Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) hosted 20 teachers from Miami-Dade County public schools in a workshop to help introduce Israel and Jewish-related content into curricula for junior high and high school students. The workshop, entitled “A Historical Perspective on the Arab-Israeli Conflict and Peace Process,” was presented in partnership with the Institute for Curriculum Services (ICS), a non-profit project of San Francisco’s JCRC and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

Led by Karla Suomala, Ph.D., ICS’s Senior Trainer, the program was developed in consultation with local policymakers, education officials, educators and publishers. The session focused on lesson plans and support materials tailored to Israeli history and social studies lessons. “This workshop provided an important opportunity to collaborate with Miami-Dade County Public Schools and give teachers the tools, resources and knowledge about Israel and Judaism to help them in their classrooms,” explained JCRC Chair Shelley Niceley Groff. “It was also a way of communicating to the community that JCRC and Federation are available as reliable information resources.”

Coordinators for the Miami-Dade County Public Schools were Dr. Miriam Klein Kassenoff, District Education Specialist/Holocaust Education, and Bob Brazofsky, Executive Director of Social Sciences. For more information about education programs offered by Federation's Jewish Community Relations Council, email CommunityRelations@JewishMiami.org or call 786.866.8486.