The Ethical Life: A JTS Curriculum for Teens - Sample Unit
The Ethical Life Teen Curriculum helps rabbis and educators create a space where teens are encouraged not just to react but to think deeply and openly about difficult questions and listen to other perspectives. The course consists of 10 units, and features contemporary case studies, Jewish texts, video profiles, discussion prompts, and other activities that encourage reflection and relationship-building.
The sample materials featured here are from Unit 8, "Can We Make Ourselves Better Than Well?" which focuses on when enhancements, which involve drug, surgical, or genetic therapies to “improve” an individual beyond their normal healthy state, become ethical dilemmas.
- Relationship Building
- Tzedakah
- Social Justice
- Disability and Belonging
- Civic Education
- Jewish Text and Thought
- Camp
- Congregational Learning
- Day Schools and Yeshivas
- Teen Engagement
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Temple Israel Center, White Plains, NY. In Havurat Torah each semester teens choose one va’adot (action committee), identify a real-life challenge, and build a project-based learning initiative around it.
Congregation Kol Ami White Plains, NY. Mesorah (tradition) is a choice-based model for 7th-12th graders that includes CORE learning and hands-on, experiential, project-based learning electives.
This curriculum guide examines Jewish values through the lens of Holocaust survivor artifacts