The Florence Melton Adult Mini-School (FMAMS) is a project of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It is "...an international network of community-based schools offering adults the opportunity to acquire Jewish literacy in an open, trans-denominational, intellectually stimulating learning environment.
The Florence Melton Adult Mini-School is the largest pluralistic adult Jewish education network in the world. Founded in 1986 at the initiative of Florence Zacks Melton, a community activist and longtime supporter of Jewish education, the Mini-School initially opened with three pilot sites in North America. Driven by her vision, there are now 62 Mini-Schools in 60 cities throughout the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia, attended weekly by some 5,500 students."
Everything within the quotation marks is an excerpt from the FMAMS web site. Rather than cut and paste any more, I will simply give you the link if you want to learn more about it (http://www.fmams.org.il/). You can explore the site on your own in order to get a flavor of what the program offers. I completed the two year program a few years ago at the Marcus Jewish Community Center here in Atlanta. It was a wonderful series of courses, and I highly recommend it.
The Israel Seminar adds another dimension to the educational process. It offers a way to experience more than three thousand years of Jewish history in those very places where that history was made, a unique method of tying the past to the present. If you read nothing else about the Melton program, here are two links in particular that I would encourage you to see, http://www.fmams.org.il/seminar-snippets/alix.html, and http://www.fmams.org.il/9a_whatsnew/10-08-04-metamorphosis.htm. I can only hope that my own personal experience on this journey will be as meaningful and rewarding as these.
Wayne
Thoughts and insights regarding my visit to Auschwitz and my two week study program in Israel with the Florence Melton Institute, 16 December 2006 to 06 January 2007.
