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Over the past 40 years, probably around 400 children have participated in Shabbat School and almost as many parents have been teachers. But how did it all begin? What changes have taken place over the years? We recently asked these questions to those who were involved in the beginning; and so, the story of Havurah’s Shabbat School is told.

Before there were Saturday morning services at Havurah, families would use this time to gather for Torah study. Soon, there was an idea that it was important to have Jewish education for the children, but it was a matter of deciding on the best day and time. Saturday mornings were filled with Torah study and kids’ soccer games, and Sunday was a day that everyone agreed should be a family day.

And who would teach this religious school? Many parents remembered their own religious school experience as children, being dropped off at the synagogue with no parent involvement. These Havurah parents wanted something different for their children. They wanted something that would provide both Jewish learning and community, where parents were involved with their children. They wanted the time that they met to feel Jewish. Thus, Shabbat School was born — September 15, 1979. It was to be on Saturdays at 3:00 pm and end with Havdalah, much like it does today.

Margie Rosenthal and Mari Livingston were the initial leaders, with Mimi Epstein and Sydney Gold taking over after them. Margie and Marie traveled to California to meet with Jewish educators and brought back curriculum material and books for each grade. Shabbat School started with approximately 30-40 families who met in the classrooms at the West Hills Unitarian Fellowship. Parents were the teachers but not all parents taught their own children’s group at that time.

In 1982, Shabbat School classes moved to the Jewish Community Center, where they continued until our community found and rehabbed the current Havurah Shalom building in Northwest Portland in 1998. During one of the first years, the families hired teachers who were working in other synagogue education programs. But they decided that having those “professionals” teach didn’t actually work as well as being the teachers themselves, and they quickly realized how important it was to them to have the parents do the teaching. The benefit of the children seeing that their parents care about what they are doing, in addition to the parents truly getting to know the kids of their community, is what helped shape Havurah’s family cooperative education model that we know today.

As time went on and the groups of children grew, parents came to teach their own children. In 1998, there was an internal assessment of the Shabbat School model, which led to the addition of more structure. Curriculum was divided into 4 quarters. Parents started working in teams, with each team responsible for one quarter of teaching. Many dedicated parents strove to create a sequence of learning and themes. Amongst them were Susan Lazareck, Marydee Sklar, Karen St. Clair, Janet Byrd, Cindy Brodner, and Fran Berg.

Rabbi Joey Wolf, and the other rabbis before him, were involved in some ways but Shabbat School was fundamentally a parent-led vision and program. Then, when there were 80 families in Shabbat School, Havurah hired its second professional Jewish leader: Deborah Eisenbach-Budner, who has been our first, and only, Education Director since 2001.

Around that time, the Notebooks emerged, collating ideas and write-ups of activities specific to that quarter’s theme along with general educational resources. Deborah began to meet with each of the 28 teaching teams (7 grades, 4 quarters per grade – a team for each one) and helped parents consider their teaching philosophically, pedagogically, and pragmatically. As support for teaching grew, the curriculum resources grew, and the Notebooks began to burst. Parents were able to take workshops that provided some training in teaching, Jewish learning, and integrating Jewish wisdom into parenting.

We came to the point that just managing the hundreds of curriculum resources became all-consuming — not to mention scheduling all the team meetings and tracking the myriad of details from a family cooperative with over one-hundred children and 85 very part-time teachers. Plus, our Education Director was also planning holiday celebrations, doing adult education, as well as serving many other roles in Havurah. In 2006, a group of Shabbat School Chairs proposed to Steering that we invest in 150 hours a year for a Shabbat School Assistant role, which later became the Assistant Coordinator of Education. This role would help Deborah collect and organize the existing Shabbat School grades’ materials (K-6), develop and integrate new materials and curriculum ideas, and make the whole curriculum accessible electronically for Shabbat School teaching teams — each quarter having designated pedagogical goals, objectives, activities, and material resources. Debbi Nadell established this role and then her fantastic work was built upon by Laura Ehrlich, Stacy Hankin, and now, Carrie Kirschner.

The quality of education that we can give our children has strengthened throughout the years. Through it all, we keep the community-building and family involvement core to our mission and our experience. What began as an experiment has grown up into an innovative and engaging model of Jewish learning and living that we can all be proud of.