About the Consortium
Izzy Pludwinski's Hebrew Aleph-bet, 2022, "The Beauty of the Hebrew Letter," Brandeis University Press.
Mission
We envision a dynamic global community where Hebrew language and culture thrive. By harnessing Hebrew's transformative power, we forge vital connections to Israel and the Jewish people. In our rapidly evolving world, we're elevating Hebrew as a premier world language by investing in educators - equipping them with innovative resources and exceptional teaching methods. Our mission: to deliver outstanding Hebrew language and cultural instruction to communities worldwide, bridging traditions with modern educational excellence.
Principles
- Language and ethnicity are intertwined. Language encodes the human experience of history, values, and culture. This expansive conception is based on a deep tradition of social science research into the relationship between language and ethnicity.
- Hebrew provides a window into Israeli and Jewish and life. Hebrew is the key to knowing and to grasping the richness of Jewishness/Judaism and Israel/Israeli culture.
- There is global interest in Hebrew. A vast audience of potential Hebrew speakers in North America and around the world is ready to be inspired to learn the language, and to do so in various settings.
- Many more educators are needed to meet demand. There is a deficit of professional Hebrew educators. An advanced degree is necessary to ensure that educators can synthesize expertise in teaching Hebrew as a second language along with Israel Studies and tap into learners’ emotional and intellectual motivations.
- Hebrew education requires scholar-practitioners with breadth and depth. Hebrew learners’ acquisition depends on quality Hebrew educators whose profile must be shifted from being providers of language learning materials to practitioners with scholarly training in knowledge areas.
- Brandeis possesses the expertise to lead the Consortium. Brandeis has been an intellectual home to Hebrew language learning for decades. The university possesses unique scholarly and research capacities that will contribute to the Hebrew Consortium’s ability to shape the field, credential scholar-practitioners, and promote the language.
- A galvanizing force must lead the Hebrew initiative. Organizations need the support of the Hebrew Consortium’s language acquisition experts in order to develop and strengthen models that increase accessibility to learning Hebrew and Israeli culture at all levels.