level and division-wide songs featured within the program. Zimriyah traditionally takes place on an evening in December prior to the Winter Break. The event is a spectacular showcasing of the entire school, and it serves as an opportunity to celebrate our community of families while extolling the themes and values that are part of our middot and our School Mission. Services, Holidays, Commemorations Part of the Judaic curriculum through the Lower School, and also within each of the Middle School grades, is the teaching of synagogue prayer skills, the leading of services in the form of students selected to be “gabbai” (people who assist in running the synagogue service), and the opportunity for each student to be able to read from the Torah scroll in Hebrew for a service, which takes place twice per week, on Monday and Thursday morning. For several service times per year, a student who is about to have his or her bar or bat mitzvah that following Saturday in a synagogue, is offered the opportunity to perform his or her service in advance at Levine in Beit Aryeh (our main prayer service location, which also serves as our assembly hall and cafeteria). The Levine service will also be a chance to perform in front of the entire Middle School as a rehearsal of sorts for the upcoming official Bar/Bat Mitzvah service at the synagogue. On top of regular weekly services, the school will celebrate, in the classroom as well as together as a school, several significant Jewish holidays throughout the year. Some of these celebrations might be a gathering of one hour to commemorate the event, while others are more festive occasions and can offer an upbeat tone of music, outdoor dancing, including a parade and a carnival. Strengths and Accomplishments in Judaic Studies and Spirituality • Levine has continued to evolve its Judaic programming in ways that stretch beyond its original narrow boundaries of Conservative Judaism, as a strategy to uphold our School Mission statement ’s assertion of being “Inclusive” and “Dynamic.” We welcome visiting Rabbi’s from across the spectrum to p articipate in our programs and even to teach an elective of their choice. • Student engagement in all of our programming, such as in helping to produce our weekly Shabbat community services, has been a hallmark of our Judaic strategy in recent years. • Levine has adopted the JTS Standards and Benchmarks, and obtains professional development from its signature entity, the Legacy Heritage Instructional Leadership Institute, on an annual basis, assisting the school’s aim to realize excellence in instructional strategies with an outcomes-based approach to biblical and rabbinic studies.
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