Religious School

RELIGIOUS SCHOOL DIRECTOR
Mary Sheydwasser - x214
msheydwasser@pbjc.org

RELIGIOUS SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR
Robin Mangino - x215
rmangino@pbjc.org

The Pine Brook Jewish Center Religious School strives to provide a high quality, stimulating and engaging Jewish education that helps foster a strong Jewish identity, community participation and love of Judaism that will inspire our children to learn our history, traditions, philosophy and the Hebrew language, now and throughout their lives.

Several objectives help us meet this vision:

• Provide a warm, welcoming and nurturing environment
• Provide a high-quality curriculum and teaching staff
• Create a partnership between home and school
• Encourage Tikum Olam (Repair the World) in our community, nation and the world
• Foster an appreciation and understanding of our shared responsibility for the future of Jewish people
• Instill confidence in participating in religious services
• Understand and value the essential principles of Conservative Judaism
• Affirm the importance of Israel to the Jewish people

To reach these objectives, our curriculum focuses on: 

• Holiday appreciation
• Bible Study
• History and current events (with an emphasis on Israel)
• Reading and writing skills
• Prayers and service
• Values, life cycle events and traditions (including Shabbat and Kashrut)
• Tzedakah (charity) and Mitzvot (good deeds).

We employ several exciting and interactive teaching strategies to stimulate the learning process.

These techniques include:

• Guest speakers
• Special projects
• Family programs
• Class trips
• Junior Congregation Services

To hear the following Torah Reading chants by Cantor Toren, click on the downloadable links below. Our religious school students can listen to these prayers to help familiarize themselves with the prayers that are chanted during Shabbat services:

• Ahavat Olam
• Adon Olam
• Aleinu
• Amidah
• Ein Kelohanu
• Kaddish
• Friday Kiddush
• Lecha Dodi
• Shalom Alechem
• Shalom Rav
• S’hma/Veahavta
• Vishamru

"If a parent wished to study Torah, and he has a child who must also learn – the parent takes precedence. However, if the child is more insightful or quicker to grasp what there is to be learned, the child takes precedence. Even though the child gains priority thereby, the parent must not ignore his own study, for just as it a Mitzvah to educate the child, so, too, is the parent commanded to teach himself."

-Maimonides, Mishneh Torah
Laws of Torah Study 1:4