EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES IN HIGH SCHOOLS

The JLHS prepares innovative educational materials for use in Jewish law presentations in schools both public and private, throughout Israel. In 1989, the year that was dedicated in the Israeli school system to the theme “Honoring the Law and Justice,” some 25,000 students, teachers, and administrators, most with little to no previous background in Jewish law, participated in workshops on Jewish law, under the guidance of educators affiliated with the Society. The workshops presented participants with contemporary dilemmas and exposed them to classical Jewish sources bearing upon the issues. Students studied the issues by preparing to act as prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges in mock trials.

During 1994 the JLHS organized workshops on environmental protection and ecological conservation. Hundreds of schools, both religious and secular, have requested and received these seminars.

The subject matter focus of these educational workshops have included:

       Taking the Law into One's Own Hands
       Duty to Rescue under risk of physical endangerment
       Extradition
       Ecology in the Technological Era
       Peace as the Ultimate Value

The JLHS is presently in the process of producing educational materials in English to be used in the teaching of Jewish law and legal values in Jewish communities and Jewish law courses throughout the world. The first booklet published (with the financial assistance of the Israeli Endownment Fund is entitled: “Self-Defense: How Far May It Go?”