Learning at Rashi
Social Justice
Tzedek (justice),one of Rashi’s five core values, is the heart of our curriculum and an essential part of our identity as a community. Our commitment to Tzedek emanates from our Reform Jewish tradition, which teaches us that all creation has one source and that humankind is created in the Divine image. Tikkun olam (repairing the world) is part of our sacred mission.
Rashi Social Justice Curriculum Insight
The Rashi social justice curriculum connects intimately to other key character development goals of a Rashi education, including democratic leadership, citizenship, critical thinking, and awareness of the diverse social forces in our world. Social justice is integrated into every appropriate aspect of the curriculum as well as activities in the broader school community. We constantly seek, identify, explore and highlight acts of social justice that occur around us. Most importantly, we model social justice every day in interactions with one another as students, teachers, peers, colleagues and friends.
Our work with each grade is thoughtful, deliberate, relevant, developmentally appropriate, presented within a spiral curriculum, and based always in Jewish text. We help students derive meaning from texts which were written years ago by examining them critically to find relevance to their lives today.
Some components of our social justice curriculum appear below along with a specific example of how each component is executed.
Kindergarten
Weekly mitzvah story guided by two texts:
Al tifrosh min hatzibur
Do not separate yourself from the community (Pirke Avot 2:5)
V’ahavta l’reacha kamocha
You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18)
Example: Each week we share a story that highlights an organization (in the U.S. or Israel) that performs mitzvot in fulfillment of one of the mandates above. We bring a tangible object to class each week to allow children to make a connection between the object and the mitzvah of the week – i.e. a hammer and Habitat for Humanity.
Grade 1
Weekly connection to children’s literature with a social justice theme
Example: First grade teachers share the book Partners, about two boys who see homeless people in the city and decide to begin a tzedakah (joy of giving) project to raise money for them.
Grade 2
Biweekly lesson on “Tzedakah Heroes” – individuals whom we know or have heard or read about, authors whose work we have studied, “ordinary people doing extraordinary things” who “saw a problem and decided to fix it”.
Example: Second graders read the book The River Ran Wild about the beauty of the Nashua River, its subsequent pollution by the paper mills in Northern Massachusetts, and Marion Stoddart’s efforts to pass the Clean Water Act.
Grade 3
Connection through TaNaKh (Torah, Prophets, Writings) studies
Example: Third graders study Noah and the concept of righteousness.
Grade 4
Connection through literature studied in Language Arts
Example: Fourth graders honor the elderly based on The War with Grandpa and engage in a social justice poetry unit in preparation for Rev. Martin Luther King’s birthday.
Grade 5
Israel connection
Example: Fifth graders experience the Yachdav program which connects our students to Leo Baeck students in Haifa and study Israeli mitzvah heroes.
Middle School
Connections by topic
Examples: Social justice permeates the middle school curriculum, appearing in units such as Holiness in Jewish Studies (Leviticus), Recycling/Protecting the Earth (trash unit in science), Language Arts (Raisin in the Sun), and Social Justice Issues during the Great Depression (Grade 8 social studies).
At Rashi, we actualize our learning through mitzvot, which makes the concepts of tikkun olam, or repairing the world, tangible and visible for students. Students learn that social justice is not a “once in a while” thing in Judaism, but rather a mandate from our tradition – each of us has unique skills and interests which we can put to work in some area which needs our help.
We emphasize with students that even as children they can make a difference in the world. With our support, each child has the opportunity to choose an area of particular interest or a problem which is particularly bothersome and apply his or her unique skills to try to help address the problem.
Find out more about Social Justice as part of Jewish Life at Rashi.
