Wonderings 31 Religious School Name

Students and staff of our Religious School thought it would be cool to have t-shirts for our school. That made us think that maybe we could use a name that is "cooler" than "Religious School." That name doesn't reflect the aspects of Jewish education and learning that make our school what it is.

Over the years it has been called other things: "Saturday School" (but it has been a long time since we met on Saturday mornings), and then obviously people came to call it "Sunday School." We would love something catchy that makes the families glad they are coming each week. We would love a short name that says who we are and what we do.

In case you have not been keeping up with what the school is like, while Rabbi Robinson and Rabbi Kawaler were here the two separate education programs became one program. In those days the Sunday Religious School was coordinate by and held at B'nai Zion and the mid-week Hebrew School was coordinated by and held at Agudath Achim. There were then some years where there were very few students per grade from Agudath Achim, so the Religious School and Hebrew School was being held at and coordinated by Helaine Braunig at B'nai Zion. We began using the ISJL (Institute for Southern Jewish Life) Education curriculum. Our curriculum makes sure that all of our students are educated in a way that we they learn about traditions from both of our Shreveport congregations (and beyond).

Helaine often would say that our responsibility is to give our children "roots and wings" to know where they are coming from, and be able to soar wherever their paths take them. Since Helaine's retirement, Barbara Joseph has done a wonderful job the past few years continuing with those goals. Our total number of students in the Jewish community is smaller than it had been, but we continue to strive to raise our children to learn Jewish values and mitzvot, holidays, history, Hebrew and more.

Can you help us find a new name for awesome education program? Wouldn't it be cool for our students to proudly wear t-shirts from our school? The faculty have already begun discussing some ideas, and realize we want something that is:

• not difficult to say (for example, "Camp Chai" is often mispronounced as "Camp Kai");
• represent all of our students: we have students not only from Shreveport
• can represent the Reform and Conservative congregations
• catchy and cool - so that families can be enthusiastic when the say, "Time to go to [insert cool name here].

Some of the ideas we had are: Red River K'hillah (K'hillah means "community"); JEDI Training (JEDI=Jewish EDucation Institute). There have been more ideas.

Since it is our school, we are hoping to get your input. 

This week I am wondering: Can you think of a name for our Religious School? Do you have an idea for a logo to go with it? Additionally, I wonder if you have favorite memories of your time in Religious School (maybe influential memories can help us think of a name)?  

 CLICK HERE for a simple form to submit name ideas.

CLICK HERE to go to the Wonderings main page to see all Wonderings questions and replies.

Once again, I want to thank everyone who has responded to my  "Wonderings."  You are always welcome to respond to any of the questions I have asked by calling or emailing, no matter how long ago the question was originally posed. You can also choose to keep your replies totally private, and not be posted on the Responses page. You will notice that I usually remove personal / identifying details for the posted replies. 

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