In the modern Jewish world Jewish identity can no longer be taken for granted. It demands acts of conscious choice. Making these choices effectively requires a grounding in the Jewish past, an awareness of the Jewish future. Jewish education is, therefore, essential to this process. At the Melton Centre for Jewish Education in the Diaspora, we are committed to meeting this challenge in all its complexity," says Melton Centre Director Ze'ev Mankowitz.

Created with an agenda to find solutions to the challenges and concerns of contemporary Jewish education, the Melton Centre is at the vanguard of world Jewry's efforts to enhance and expand the field of Jewish education -- and it is the the Centre's Senior Educators Program which perhaps best illustrates the extent of these efforts.

The program brings together Jewish educators from all over the world, offering them a year of intensive professional development and personal enrichment. The Centre, which comprises the world's largest faculty and graduate student body specializing in Jewish education in the Diaspora, gives them the opportunity to study with today's leading scholars in Jewish studies and Jewish education.

"Graduates of the program have assumed central positions in virtually all diaspora communities. Indeed, the program is the foremost training program in the world today," says Dr. David Harman, director-general of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization's Joint Authority for Jewish Zionist Education which provides financial support for the program.

Michael Gillis, the director of the Senior Educators Program who was formerly director of curriculum development at Mount Scopus College in Melbourne, describes the nature of the program: "We aim to bring together 25 senior educators, people who are gifted, motivated, and with recognized achievements in the field of Jewish education. We offer them an opportunity to further develop their skills, explore new directions and enrich themselves personally in both Jewishand educational terms." Indeed, as well as having access to courses offered by the Melton Centre and the Hebrew University, participants can further exploit Jerusalem's educational resources by taking supplementary courses at institutes outside the University and representing the broadest spectrum of approaches to Judaism. These include Yad Vashem and the Ben-Zvi Institute as well as yeshivot and religious seminaries.

"Sitting in a seminar with Jewish educators from different countries creates an encounter that is hard to imagine happening anywhere else"

Gillis believes that there exists a partnership between Israel and the partnership between Israel and the Diaspora in working together to maintain the integrity of the Jewish people. "The human and financial investment here in the Senior Educators Program is an expression of that partnership. The program is funded by the Joint Authority for funded by the Joint Authority for Jewish Zionist Education of the Jewish Agency. Participants also need the support of their own communities and some have also received generous support from the Joint Distribution Committee and the Rich Foundation. The University has the task of building and running the program and selecting the right educators.

"The experience of sitting in a seminar with Jewish educators from different countries, from Hungary, Russia, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and America," he says, " It's not only inspiring, but it also gives concrete expression to the existence of a cohesive Jewish people, a people whose common values and goals come to the fore in the arena of education."

Ella Kovacs is a relative newcomer to Jewish education. The 26-year-old had no idea she was Jewish until she was 15 when her parents told her. "At the time it didn't really mean much to me." She was aware, however, that her high school in Budapest had been a Jewish school before the Commuists came to power and she also knew that many of her classmates were Jewish. Ella went on to study theatre at the Budapest Academy of Theatre, Art and Film and, during her studies, visited Israel at the invitation of a Jewish friend.

She subsequently returned to Israel and enrolled in ulpan at Tel Aviv University. While the level of her Hebrew progressed rapidl y, Ella's sense of Jewish identity did not. Nevertheless, the experience whetted her appetite and, on her return to Hungary, she spent two years studying Hebrew, Bible studies and Jewish history at a Jewish institute in Budapest which offers teacher training in Jewish subjects. "Since most of the students had little Jewish background, the institute gave us the basics," she says. Alongside these studies. Ella also embarked on a degree at Eotvoss Lorand University -- with Judaism as her major.

Ella regards the Senior Educators Program as giving her an opportunity to experience living in Israel and improve her qualifications as a Jewish studies teacher. She is looking forward to contributing to her community in Budapest. "There are elderly and young people there with no connection to their Jewish roots. I would like to help them rebuild those connections and strengthen the community." she says, adding that she is especially keen to work with teenagers on the issue of Jewish identity and to to find a way of teaching Bible using drama and other art forms.

Ann Lanski lives Jewish education. She founded and directs Shorashirn, a program designed to build bridges between Israeli and American youth by taking them on joint trips to Poland and Israel; she teaches Hebrew at public school in suburban Chicago; and she runs the Sunday school at a local synagogue.

Active in the Reform and Hashomer Hatza'ir youth movements as a youngster, Ann also spent time studying in Israel and, thus, developed a strong connection with the country. On graduating in psychology and Jewish studies from the University of Illinois, Ann was appointedcoordinator of a Sunday school of 40 children for an alternative synagogue which, out of principle, has no board of directors or building of its own. The congregation has grown during Ann's seven-year tenure and now comprises 250 families with the Sunday school serving 200 children. "I am responsible for planning all educational programs and curricula, including adult education, bar and bat mitzvas, and Israel programs," she says.

"One summer, I coordinated an encounter between Americans and Israelis that had an unprecedented impact. Suddenly, I understood Israel in a way that I hadn't experienced before - through the eyes of Israelis from Jerusalern. I was floored and realized that I really didn't understand anything."

As a result, Ann founded Shorashirn (Hebrew for roots), a program that takes Israeli and American youth through Poland and Israel in an effort to explore their common roots and to build bridges between them.

Ann also teaches Hebrew in a suburban Chicago high school where she has accomplished a rare feat--" Judaism has become cool," she says "in a school where theater or soccer is the competition."

Ann feels an immense responsibility as an educator and it waslargely this feeling that led her to the Senior Educators Program where she hopes to widen her knowledge of Hebrew, Jewish philosophy, history and liturgy. "I feel that my religious education did not give me a solid background," she says, adding that she is awed by the opportunity to study with leading Bible commentator and educator Nechama Leibowitz. "To learn Tanach with her is excellent. It's like walking into another reality. There are no walls in her home, only books. She's in her nineties, with a great sense of humor and there's nothing she doesn't know."

Ann is clear about the future. After her year at the Melton Centre, she says, "I want to go right back, infuse and enrich students -- and create new possibilities and directions.'

Mariella Lukacher, 25, is a product of Buenos Aires' large and active Jewish community. Born into a traditional Jewish family, she attended a Jewish day school and was involved in Jewish youth groups. She went on to receive an M.A. in Education and Psychology and, before joining the Senior Educators Program, worked with children with learning disabilities in a local hospital. Most of Mariella's evenings were spent working in informal Jewish education at the city's Jewish center where, as director of its youth training division, she ran a training program for teenage youth group leaders.

"If it weren't for Jewish educators, diaspora Jewry would probably disappear," says Mariella. "I think our primary role and responsibility is to ensure the continuity of the Jewish community. In the case of teenagers, it's a particularly tough fight because we are competing against secular society. If we're going to win we have to create something equally, if not more, attractive." She adds that resistance to Jewish education by some parents stems from their fears that their children will either become religiously observant or emigrate to Israel.

Mariella maintains that the solution for her community lies in finding ways to involve the whole family in an educational framework. She envisages the creation of summer camps for the entire family, and she would like to exploit what she describes as the "special connection between grandparents and grandchildren."

Like her fellow students on the Senior Educators Program, Mariella singles out the opportunity to meet Jewish educators from all over the world as a unique benefit of the program. "It's important for me to know what's going on in other communities and I've learned that we share the same concerns," she says.

"In addition, being able to study at the Hebrew University has given me the opportunity to study texts encompassing both Jewish education and issues relating to the Jewish family."

Born in America and raised in Johannesburg, Tova Rubinstein grew up in an environment of informal education. Her father is a rabbi and she recalls outreach to her father's congregants as being the focal point of life at home. Prior to the Senior Educators Program, she was assistant director of the Informal Jewish Education Division at the South African Board of Jewish Education.

Tova's first personal experience of informal Jewish education was as a teen advisor to a Yeshiva University outreach program called Counterpoint, targeted at children within the King David school network in Johannesburg which serves 4,500 students in two high schools, three elementary schools and three nursery schools. "I have been involved in this type of programming for the last 10 years, serving in various capacities," says 35-year-old Tova.

She went on to spend a year in Israel at a religious seminary and to receive a degree in social work in South Africa, followed by an M.S.W. from the Wurzweiler School of Social York. When she returned to Johannesburg, Counterpoint had been discontinued but, says Tova, "youth programming was revived with the stablishment of an in-house division for informal Jewish education. A rogram called Encounter, modelled on Counterpoint, was set up - it included special programs for habbatot and day-long seminars. I was hired to develop and coordinate the educational programming and my husband later took over as director of the program. We've been there ever since."

Feeling the need for a break from teaching, Tova has sought a stronger theoretical basis in education during her participation in the Senior Educators Program. "I have been able to spend a whole year doing courses at the Hebrew University in teacher training, curriculum development and the philosophy of education. Consequently, I have gained a tremendous amount of self-confidence as an educator and in my belief in the role of educators."

Through her work with her personal tutor, Ze'ev Mankowitz, and the faculty of the Melton Centre, Tova also feels that she has identified a new area to pursue within Jewish education. Aware that educational programming has a limited effect without parental support and reinforcement, there is a "need to focus on the family and on adult education," she says. She is now in the process of writing and designing a family education program model and hopes to implement it when she returns to Johannesburg. "The goal should be to address not just the child, but the family, as the client," she says. "We need to empower the family to take back responsibility for its own Jewishness."