At the Jewish Lyceum No. 144 named after Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, the leading educational institution of the Dnipro Jewish Community, a mentorship system has been consistently developed this academic year as part of an initiative by its Judaic Studies department. This system entails regular, informal, and content-rich communication between the department’s teachers and the classes assigned to them, and it was precisely during the days of Hanukkah that this system took on a special, warm, and truly vibrant embodiment.
Throughout the days of Hanukkah, several mentors, according to their possibilities and pedagogical plans, invited senior-grade students to their homes to celebrate Hanukkah together in a domestic atmosphere where school formalities take a back seat, and personal contact, dialogue, and shared experience of tradition come to the forefront. Aliza Rabinovich hosted ninth and tenth-grade students on various days; Leah Lazareva invited seventh and eighth-grade students together on the seventh day of Hanukkah; and Malki Feldman held a meeting at her home with eleventh-grade students.
These meetings were structured as a space for trusting communication, where students and mentors could genuinely get to know each other, discuss the commandments, laws, and history of Hanukkah, talk about the meanings of the holiday, ask questions—including those not directly related to the curriculum but prompted by personal interest, internal searches, and what concerns teenagers right now. In such an informal, home-like atmosphere, students shared what is important to them, and teachers, in turn, shared their own experiences, reflections, and personal attitudes towards the tradition.
“This format has proven to be very effective, and the experience of home meetings for Hanukkah received positive feedback. We intend to hold such meetings also on one of the Shabbats,” said the head of the Judaic Studies department, Aliza Rabinovich. “We received very inspiring feedback from students, who find it much easier to talk about their problems in a relaxed atmosphere outside the walls of the lyceum and who have the opportunity to see how a living Jewish tradition is realized while being in homes filled with Yiddishkeit and the light of Chassidus. Our department seeks new, unconventional ways to approach each student of the lyceum, and we are grateful for the support of our initiatives from the united and cohesive Dnipro Jewish Community under the leadership of its Rav, Shmuel Kaminezki.”
