Ezra Academy is the proud recipient of a Jewish Education Innovation Challenge Grant (JEIC), awarded by the Mayberg Foundation. The Mayberg Foundation invests in organizations and initiatives with bold ideas to inspire, educate and strengthen Jewish communities. The JEIC grant is for radical improvement in Jewish day schools, challenging them to optimize student internalization of Jewish wisdom, identity and decision making. Ezra Academy’s grant was awarded in recognition of its sixth- through eighth-grade social justice curriculum, which benefits five small Jewish communities across the country.

After studying U.S. history, government and the concept of advocacy, the school’s seventh grade then spent a week in Washington, D.C.

The social justice curriculum involved Ezra Academy’s sixth grade studying the American Civil Rights Movement and participating in a subsequent learning journey to Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma in Alabama. They are pictured above on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.

This year, Ezra Academy’s eighth grade curriculum will include the design thinking concept and its influence on science, technology and innovation. The class will then examine Israeli companies that are using the design approach to develop products and concepts that tackle issues of social justice and equity. The students will spend two weeks in Israel in May, which will include visiting companies and facilities to see design thinking in process.