Some D.C.-area parents want to involve their kids in Jewish education, but they’re busy on Sundays. Others can’t make a weekly commitment on top of school and extracurriculars. That’s where Hill Havurah’s Jewish Kids Club comes into play.
The independent Jewish community based in Capitol Hill offers a program on the second Tuesday of every month for elementary school students interested in learning more about Judaism.
This year’s Jewish Kids Club runs from October to June.
“[Jewish Kids Club] provides an opportunity for kids to gather for socialization with other Jewish kids and to do a bit of meaningful content,” Melissa Werbow, Hill Havurah’s director of education, said. “It’s a nice balance of those two things.”
The program has grown since its inception in 2021. Now, the club is so large that Werbow split it into two age groups: kindergarten through second grade and third through fifth grades.
The younger group explores Jewish holidays through the lens of Jewish values by cooking, crafting, playing games and reading literature.
The kids typically start with an activity sheet while munching on pizza and a fruit or vegetable. Then they get to do two to three activities that relate to the day’s theme.
“If we’re talking about the Purim superhero, they might be making masks. If we’re talking about Chanukah and bringing light into the darkness, they might make hanukkiot to take home,” Werbow said.
She might lead them in a game of “Shofar, May I?” — a spinoff of the children’s game “Mother, May I?” Almost every meeting of the Jewish Kids Club includes a craft so that participants can remember what they’ve learned.
Cooking is a favorite for the younger group, which has had the opportunity to make their own matzah and rainbow hamantaschen.
“Any cooking project we do, they love, mainly because those cooking projects are sweet,” Werbow said. “They love all food.”
After a long day at school, the kids also bring a lot of energy to the evening program.
“They really enjoy when we play games that involve running around,” Werbow said. “We have to give them opportunities to be engaged with their whole body.”
The older kids look at biblical stories that illustrate a specific Jewish value, starting with welcoming guests, hachnasat orchim. Werbow aims for them to connect this value with Sukkot and welcoming guests into a sukkah, or perhaps the story of Rahab and the Spies, in which Rahab hides and protects the spies from the king’s men.
“Our goal is to get to stories that maybe our kids don’t always encounter when they’re younger,” Werbow said.
This educational aspect is important for Jewish children, she said.
“For lots of these kids, they know they’re Jewish, but they may not necessarily know what that looks like,” Werbow said. “This is the opportunity for them to learn about their Jewish heritage and tradition that they can then bring home to their families, to their extended families, to their friends.”
Some members of the Jewish Kids Club attend schools where they’re in the minority, making it challenging to connect with fellow Jewish peers.
“Because of the way Capitol Hill is, a lot of our kids go to very different schools, so they may not necessarily have other Jewish kids in their class at school,” Werbow said. “But they get to come [to a place] where being Jewish is normal.”
This sense of community could explain the excitement the kids have for Jewish Kids Club.
“The kids come in with so much energy and enthusiasm for their teachers,” Werbow said. “They’ve saved up a month’s worth of things they want to share and talk about and tell each other. They’re happy to see each other.”
Werbow said the teachers also have no trouble getting the children engaged with the material.
“They’re always excited to find out what we’re going to be doing that day and what kind of projects they’re going to be taking home and what the game will be,” she said. “Especially for our younger group, as they’re learning to read, sometimes they’re like, ‘Can I read the story this week?’ They’re so happy to show off what they know and what they’re learning.”
Werbow looks forward to the first session on Oct. 14, which happens to fall on a festive day: “We are going to roll our Jewish Kids Club right into Simchat Torah.”
This year, for the first time, Hill Havurah will host a parent-child learning session to kick off the program.
“I am really proud of Jewish Kids Club, and it’s something that I’m so happy that we’re able to offer the community,” she said. “[It’s] a real testament to meet families where they are.”
