Havruta High School for Leadership and Culture - Introduction
Havruta is a newly inaugurated and innovative high school in the heart of Israel, different from other high schools in Israel. It is unique in many ways, but most of all in its commitment to the mission statement of its founding body, the Israel Center for Youth Leadership (ICYL):
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ICYL's mission is to educate a new generation of Israelis to find self actualization in leadership and public service, inspired by our ancient heritage and values; to prepare and equip them to address the complex challenges faced by Israel and the Jewish People, and to enable Israel to flourish and hold a position of respect amongst nations.
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ICYL is a non-profit independent educational institution, designed to provide a holistic and inclusive approach to youth leadership development; an approach that addresses the needs of students, teachers and the wider community in Israel and in the Diaspora. It consists of four synergetic components:
The Havruta High School for Leadership and Culture
The Teachers' Leadership Center (TLC)
Outreach and Partnerships
Research and Development
The Center's cornerstone is the Havruta High School for Leadership and Culture, a day schooldesigned to eventually accommodate up to 600 pupils aged 12-18. Its educational mission is to nurtureleadership characterized by an outward growing sense of responsibility: responsibility for our own choices and actions, responsibility to our family, to the society in which we live, to our nation and to the world.
Havruta opened its doors to students on August 31st 2009, at Ruppin, alongside the Ruppin Academic Center, several kilometers east of the central coast town of Nethanya. Through the generosity and vision of ICYL's donors, Havruta has been able to back up its "needs blind" admissions policy by awarding scholarships to 34% of its first year students. The average scholarship awarded covers 75% of full tuition!
Before applying for a scholarship, applicants must fulfill Havruta's admission criteria, which reflect our belief that leadership springs from a wide variety of traits and abilities. Havruta students are highly motivated, responsible, curious and independent. They are active and socially aware. Socio-economic factors are not included in the admissions criteria. In fact, a generous student aid program helps ensure the socio-economic and cultural diversity we believe is necessary for promoting an awareness and respect for the pluralistic nature of our society.
Havruta's curriculum complies with national requirements, but the emphasis is on broadening minds and on developing thinking, learning and social skills, rather than focusing on exam material. Students will study for matriculation exams and beyond, including an early college program in the liberal arts, in association with Bard College. A longer than usual school day (8:30 am to 4:30 pm on most days) allows for off-campus activities, such as involvement in social change initiatives, visiting public institutions, business mentoring and excursions.
A unique feature of the school, inspired by and learned from Phillips Exeter Academy's Harkness Method, is the use of oval shaped tables for group study, employing the methods of Socratic Dialogue and traditional Jewish learning. We call this "Studying in Havruta".
The pluralistic and inter-disciplinary study of Judaism as our common heritage, history and culture takes center stage. It is taught in the context of understanding Israel's role vis-à-vis the Diaspora and the global environment in which we live and function.
Beyond its primary mission vis-a-vis the students, ICYL is committed to a greater purpose; creating a new educational model for Israel, a lab school that will share its discoveries and experiences with teachers and educators throughout Israel and the Diaspora. It is in order to fulfill this greater purpose that ICYL has been designed to comprise four synergetic components: Havruta High School plus:
The Teachers' Leadership Center was inaugurated in September 2008 for a preparatory year of reflection and development:The year focused primarily on our own teachers; on allowing and challenging them to share in converting the ICYL vision into reality.
Using ICYL's founding principles and values as a starting point, a dozen carefully selected founding teachers, holding advanced degrees in their fields, shared responsibility for designing the High School's curriculum, pedagogy, language and organizational culture of trust, team-work and leadership through personal example. They used this year to develop a coherent program of richly varied content and ways of learning, a part of which is inter-disciplinary and jointly developed by teachers from different fields.
In the long term, the Teachers' Leadership Center will focus on advancing the capacity, motivation and standing of the faculty and of the teaching profession in Israel. It will work to establish teaching as a desirable and respected profession, characterized by continuous growth, learning and the exercise of leadership both inside and outside the classroom.
Outreach and Partnerships is an embryonic component of ICYL. Its raison d'etre is to connect ICYL and Havruta to the wider community, to other schools and educational institutions in Israel and in the Diaspora.
The strategic aim is to create a platform for connecting Israeli and Diaspora youth, in a setting that encourages the application of Jewish values to global issues and lays the ground for collaborative leadership in the future. It is essential for the next generation of Israeli and Jewish leaders to be able to work together and to leverage their shared heritage and values in the service of Tikkun Olam (creating a better world). Our aim is to establish a network of young Israeli and Jewish leaders, cooperating to make the world a better place, and ultimately striving to create leadership for the Jewish People that can work in partnership with the global community.
Research and Development at ICYL has already begun: The faculty's year of preparation was documented, researched and evaluated methodically by an independent researcher.
We plan to take this to the next stage – an in-house R & D Center. The rationale behind it is that a lab school operating in the relatively unchartered territory of youth leadership development, needs to continuously reflect on its progress, learn from mistakes, leverage achievements and share its evolving know-how with other educators and with the school system at large. Only through sharing our experience can we hope to spread the benefit beyond the immediate Havruta community.
"When I grow up, I want to have roots and wings as well"
From a poem by Amnon Shamoosh
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Founding Members of the Board
Dror Aloni – Chairman
Ra'anan Avital – Chief Executive Officer
Nurit Mayer – Executive Committee Chair
Ronit Dolev
Ruth Knoller-Levy
Dov Lapid
Michael Zellermayer
Advisory Board
Leon Botstein, President of Bard College, Music Director of the American Symphony and Jerusalem Symphony Orchestras
Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Efraim Halevi, Director, Center for Strategic and Policy Studies, Hebrew University, Past Head of Mossad and Director of the National Security Council
Rabbi Michael Paley, Scholar in Residence, UJA Federation of New York
Bruce Powell, Founding Head of New Community Jewish High School, LA
Yair Berzon, Lecture and researcher in leadership studies, Haifa University
Naomi Josefsberg, Kibbutz Teachers’ College – Academic Advisor
ICYL is supported by the following organizations:
- UJA Federation of New York
- UJC
- Jewish Agency for Israel
- United Jewish Appeal
- FJC – A Donor Advised Fund