Who are Kesher Families?

Kesher is a warm and welcoming community committed to creating a heimish environment for our students to learn, make friends, and develop their Jewish identities. Kesher’s community is a diverse group of families all committed to excellence in Jewish learning. We have families who are observant and not observant, who belong to synagogues and don’t belong to synagogues, who celebrate Shabbat weekly and who don’t; who are married, divorced, and single; who come from diverse cultural backgrounds, who have adopted children, who have one Jewish parent and one non-Jewish parent, who have non-Jewish grandparents, and who live in Newton, Watertown, Needham, Brighton, Brookline, Lexington, Natick, and Jamaica Plain. Some Kesher families come from day school backgrounds, have converted to Judaism or not, have studied how to live a Jewish life as an adult, or are still learning about being Jewish currently. Some have a lot of Jewish knowledge and some do not. What all of our families have in common are that they are committed to excellence in Jewish learning, are looking for community for themselves or their children, and are looking for an alternative to either day school learning or congregational learning.

Why do Families send their children to Kesher?

 A current Kesher family recommended it to them
 The kids are happy and engaged
 They are looking for something more than their synagogue religious school is offering
 For a more camp-like environment for their kids
 We are a welcoming, pluralistic community
 Modern Hebrew is important to them
 No Sunday program
 It’s a small community compared to the large synagogues in the area
 The teachers are well-trained
 Day School is too expensive
 They don’t belong to a synagoguge and are looking for high-quality Jewish education for their children
 The need for after-school childcare

What does Kesher do for families?

Kesher’s main purpose is to create meaningful and excellent learning experiences for the students, but we do also want to create a community of families among Kesher families. Kesher’s family educator provides many opportunities throughout the year for families to gather together to celebrate holidays, learn together, and get to know one another.

We begin our year with brunches at families Sukkot to welcome back our community after the summer and end our year with a family picnic at the Newton Centre Playground. We have two havdalot each year, one in November and one in March, where we sing, say goodbye to Shabbat, and do activities like Israeli dancing as a community. Families celebrate Chanukah and Purim together during Shira. We hold a catered Shabbat dinner in early Spring for the entire Kesher community. We also provide opportunities for families to have their own potluck Shabbat dinners throughout the year. Kesher provides learning opportunities for parents and extended Kesher adults a few times a year. Weekly, the family educator sends out a parasha summary and discussion questions, click here for the most recent one and to be added to the list. In June we end our year with a fantastic evening of Hebrew and Israeli food at Erev Ivrit.

Because we are a small community and we do have a full-time Family Educator, Kesher listens to the interests of their current families and creates new opportunities every year for families to come together. If you have any questions about families at Kesher please e-mail our Family Educator at liz@keshernewton.org!