EMA Summer Institute 2026: Torah for the Teachers

Ask any Jewish educator what they wish they had more of, and the answers tend to cluster around similar things: time to think, colleagues who understand the work, and space to remember why they do what they do. The Executive M.A. in Jewish Education Summer Institute is, at its best, all three at once.

At this year's institute, Cohorts 13 and 14 - students beginning their second and first year of study, respectively - gathered on our New York City campus for a week of learning, worship, and connection. Before the coursework and the packed schedules, they gathered at New York's historic Central Synagogue for Kabbalat Shabbat services and dinner together. It was the perfect opening note: not a lecture or an orientation, but a meal and a room full of people spending sacred time together. Rested and connected, the Summer Institute began in earnest on Sunday when Cohort 13 hosted a welcome session for Cohort 14 - a warm, refreshing start to the week.

After that, their days were packed. Mornings began in the Hebrew Union College chapel with Shacharit, offering a moment of stillness and prayer before the learning began. Courses with Kristi Garroway, Ph.D., Professor of Bible, and Rabbi Jan Katzew, Ph.D., pushed students intellectually; a tefilah Intensive with Cantor Jill Abramson '02, Interim Head of Seminary Programs and Director of the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, enveloped students in the spiritual heart of Jewish communal life.

Through it all, learning still occurred in the spaces between one scheduled event and the next - over lunches together, in passing hallway conversations, and in the small moments spent with colleagues who understand your work.

The students ventured beyond the walls of Hebrew Union College, too. A visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Professor Garroway invited a different kind of reflection in a unique learning space, surrounded by art and relics of the past. A trip to the Heschel School, a Jewish day school on the Upper West Side, offered inspiration and, perhaps, a reminder of some students' own school days when they were young.

The week concluded with a Siyyumled by President Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D., which gave way to one final gathering where students each wrote their own blessing: for themselves, for their communities, and for the cohort members who had been with them all week. It's one thing to study together, but it's another thing to wish for each other, out loud and in writing. That, maybe, is what the Summer Institute is really about.

May we be blessed with challenges and given the courage to learn from them.

May we find Torah in the eyes of our students, teachers, peers, and mentors.

May we find the best versions of ourselves.

- selection of EMA student blessings