Melton offers pluralistic Jewish education
for adults who want to learn
This is one in an occasional series about participants in adult education throughout our community.
The table in Mickie Bodner’s Mequon dining room looked like a page from a glossy magazine’s summer brunch photo shoot.
But the lox, bagels and cream cheese, sumptuous fruits and pastries and fragrant coffee were of secondary interest. Primary was camaraderie among the 10 Florence Melton Adult Mini School Institute students and teachers who attended this mid-summer “reunion” during their long break from classes.
This class, which has finished its first year of studies and is the fourth to go through the program, is a diverse group. Some have been studying Judaism all their lives and one had not set foot in a synagogue until his wedding day.
Some grew up in traditional Jewish homes, some in Reform homes with regular synagogue attendance and schooling and others had little or no familiarity with Jewish traditions.
“An important thing about Melton is that we don’t come from one ideology. We present; you learn and make up your own mind,” said Jody Hirsh, who, with Moshe Katz, teaches the four core Melton classes at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center.
Ranging in age from young adulthood to retirement age, several of the 11 students in this class said that they feel enriched by the age diversity. “The unique thing is the class make-up — it’s multigenerational — and every person here brings a different insight,” said Bodner.
Like Linda Freedman, who said she knows a number of people who took the Melton classes and were so enriched by them, many in this class enrolled because of enthusiastic reports from Melton graduates. Others learned about it from mailings or were persuaded to join by friends who sought study companions.
Evelyn Rosen, who recently had a bat mitzvah ceremony at Congregation Emanu-El, convinced her husband, Harold, to sign up last fall. “I was newly retired and I had no Jewish knowledge,” said Harold. The couple said they have two sets of friends who participated in the Melton program and raved about it.
“My friend Mickie [Bodner] asked me to take the Melton classes with her,” said Eileen Staller of Bayside. “Mickie got interested through her daughter-in-law, who had completed the course. She didn’t tell me it was a two-year commitment,” added Staller, laughing.
“I had had the feeling, erroneously, that it was something for the very observant. [In the past] I really felt like an outsider when I went to synagogue. I felt separate from everyone else [who knew how to read the prayers.] I wanted to be part of it.”
“My Torah portion,” Staller said, “was about the quest for knowledge. The more you learn the more you quest to learn. Another motivation was keeping my brain active and growing.”
Another driving force, some students mentioned, was that, as adults, they now feel ready to study and learn as their own choice.
“I grew up in a Reform home. I went to synagogue, had a bat mitzvah and went to Brandeis and Israel, but I didn’t feel like I knew anything,” said Sharon Lerner of Milwaukee.
Similarly, Beth Ann Waite of Delafield “had a bat mitzvah and went to Hebrew high school, but now I’m ready to learn and understand.” Also, since she lives in an area where there are few Jews, people ask her questions about Judaism, she said.
Bodner explained, “We start with Torah and move through history to Talmud … and then we move to later commentaries and then to contemporary commentaries. We take a concept and move it from the beginning to now.
“It is never a lecture. Jody and Moshe are filled with knowledge and are great facilitators. They give a brief lesson and then it’s conversation,” added Bodner.
As for homework, Waite said “There is a good ebb and flow. If you want to read the readings ahead of time you can, but we do read them in class.”
The students form a bond, which allows for honest searching, discussion and debate. “I can’t imagine anybody dropping out,” said Waite.
The classes, which are available on Tuesday mornings or Wednesday evenings, meet for three 10-week trimesters from September through May.
Although the Tuesday and Wednesday classes consist of separate groups of students, they parallel each other and students may make up a class, or repeat one, as Waite did when “a topic relating to the Holocaust was really troubling me. I needed to spend more time on it so I went to the class twice,” she said.
According to its brochure, “The Melton Mini School provides a systematic and sequential study of Judaism with a pluralistic and open perspective. There are no prerequisites, tests or grades and graduates completing all four core classes will receive a certificate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In addition, six new 10-week classes are available to Melton graduates.”
Hirsh and Katz will be teaching sample Melton classes at Shalom Milwaukee: A Festival of Jewish Culture on Sept. 12 at the JCC, Hirsh said.
For more information, call Hirsh at 414-967-8199 or Dorene Paley at 414-967-8217.
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