Anyone in Israel?

[Ann]

I was just wondering if there is anyone living in Israel.

[emelsha]

Maybe no members from this board live in Israel, but I would love to visit there. Is there a network of home schoolers in Jerusalem? I would be interested to hear more about your experience homeschooling in Israel.

[Chocolate Lover]

I am hoping to make Aliyah eventually. I need to get a couple more college degrees before I can support us in Israel, a difficult economy.
I am on a Yahoo group called Israelhomeschool. I primarily lurke there, and have learned there are homeschoolers throughout the country. They primarily use the list to announce meetings and activities. The Jerusalem group meets at the Jerusalem Zoo every two weeks, I think. The majority of hsers are American Jewish immigrants who are unschoolers.
There is a strong process going on with homeschooling and its' legal status. The supreme court has upheld the parents' right to homeschool, and the Ministry of Education is having a hard time figuring out their role in that context. Some types of families are targeted more than others - single moms, new immigrants, those with less Hebrew, families with children of vastly different abilities, etc. The MoE calls people in for interviews to decide if they will get a certificate of permission to homeschool. There have been families where they gave a cert. for one child, but not another child in the family. The vast majority of homeschooling families are not known to the MoE, they are going underground. I suspect that some don't do out of home activities until after the public and religious school hours. Public and religious school meets six days a week. I think Fridays are a shorter day to prepare for the Sabbath.
On the other hand, those homeschoolers doing the political negotiating have a really great legal representation that individual families can hire if they are having a hard time with the MoE.
Well, that is about all I know at this time.
HTH.:D

[BlueGator]

We don't live in Isreal, but my son will be taking a real time Hebrew class from Isreal next November.

They said it was ok for Christians to be a part of it.

Shalom:D

[wagnfun]

I was just wondering if there is anyone living in Israel.


Nope, don't live there... We're in So Cal, but in 2 weeks my 17 yr old is going to Israel for 10 days. She is going with a group of seniors graduating from the local Christian school.

I wish i could go!!!

[harbke]

We went to israel a year ago. My husband is a Jew and we have had a hard time transitioning the boys from Christian to Judaism. (they are jr high age and jsut want to be like all the other kids

[BlueGator]

I found it "Googling" for a Hebrew language program.

We registered for the class starting 11-1-2008. It seems like an eternity away. We have not tried it, but the idea seems really cool. It's costly if Hebrew lessons are a passing fancy.

Here is the little I know:

www.onlinehebrew.com (http://www.onlinehebrew.com)

It is about $750 for 8 months once a week for a real time class that you dial into. There is homework. They say in 3 classes the child will have basic Hebrew conversation skills. Adults need about 5 classes.

This has to be less expensive than Hebrew through a Rabbi.

To keep the skill the child needs to watch Hebrew TV and read newspapers in Hebrew.

Biblical or Historical Hebrew does not have punctuation and is more difficult. They said it takes longer to read and understand Biblical Hebrew.