The Nicolet High School Hebrew program will undergo a change this fall as Yael Gal, a native of Haifa, Israel, takes over following the retirement of longtime Nicolet Hebrew teacher Suzanne Weinstein.
Gal taught Hebrew at the Milwaukee Jewish Day School in the 1990s before moving back to Israel in 1997. She returned to the MJDS faculty when she, her husband, and three children moved back to Milwaukee in 2004.
Gal will teach three classes at Nicolet each morning, which is 60 percent of a full-time position. She will continue to teach and coordinate a new Hebrew curriculum in the middle school at MJDS in the afternoons.
Last year, Nicolet reduced its Hebrew offerings from five to three classes by combining levels, in a cost-cutting measure brought on by declining enrollment in its Hebrew classes.
In an article in the June 22, 2007, issue of The Chronicle, Nicolet representatives speculated that the school would offer four classes, but in the end it reduced its 2007-2008 offerings to three classes.
This year Hebrew 1 and 2 will be offered in a combined class, as will Hebrew 4 and 5. Hebrew 3 will be offered as a separate class.
The courses, which encompass both language and culture, will continue to feature the theme of “Israel at 60” that began last year. And as the year progresses, Gal plans to bring in the added theme of Tel Aviv at 100, as “the first modern Hebrew city” celebrates its one hundredth anniversary.
“Through the language, we will touch Israeli music, literature, sports, art, history and geography” among other things, said Gal. She plans to involve Milwaukee’s shin shinim, or young Israel emissaries, in the classes, she said.
Gal, who said that this year will be her 17th year of teaching, served four years in the Israel Defense Forces’ air force where she did social work and worked as an educator for soldiers who wanted to continue their education.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Haifa University, and then taught literature, language arts and English as a foreign language in high school, which in Israel includes grades 7-12.
She has also worked as an administrator; taught Hebrew in an ulpan (school for the intensive study of Hebrew) for new immigrants from Russia and Hebrew and English in Arab villages in Israel.
Gal has also taught Hebrew at an ulpan run by the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Coalition for Jewish Learning and the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center; at Congregation Sinai and at several other local synagogues.
Her accomplishments as a teacher have been recognized by a number of awards. This year, she was CJL’s nominee for the prestigious Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award for Excellence in Jewish Education.
She was recently informed that she was selected as a recipient for this national award, which will be presented at a gala award ceremony in New York City in October.
Her main goal, Gal said, is to encourage middle school and religious school students to continue their study of Hebrew.
She is also interested in attracting non-Jewish students to this ancient language, which she described as “a miracle language — the youngest modern language” which “was reborn just in the last 150 years.”
Nicolet School District Administrator Dr. Rick Monroe told The Chronicle in a telephone interview on Tuesday that he is optimistic about the future of Nicolet’s Hebrew program.
With the strong connection to the Milwaukee Jewish Day School that Gal brings and with her reputation as a dynamic teacher who makes learning fun, he thinks Hebrew will build in popularity, he said.
“It may take a couple of years,” Monroe said, but Nicolet will offer more classes as the number of Hebrew students increases.
“We are the only public high school in the state which offers Hebrew and we are very proud of that,” he said.
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