I’ve been to Israel many times but to go with the people I’ve been going to school with for 4 years is an experience like none other. Friend groups and divisions melted away as we became so much closer on the eve of our graduation.
Zionism is a pillar of a Schechter education, and our students are immersed in love of Israel through prayer, study, and activism. Students in the Lower School were featured on the local news channel for reciting the prayer for captives each day of Gilad Shalit’s imprisonment. Students in the Upper School attend the AIPAC Policy Conference, pursue coexistence through the Tony Blair Foundation in our Face-2-Faith Club, and watch the senior class perform a play entirely in Hebrew for Yom Haatzmaut each year.
The pinnacle of the SSLI experience is the 12th grade trip to Israel. After years of study and growing together as a grade community, students embark on a 3 week journey. There, they connect with the history, land and People of Israel. They speak the Hebrew they have studied and witness their classroom lessons come alive before their eyes. The highlight of the trip is the student relationships that are solidified before students graduate and head off to college.
Upon graduation, our students are Israeli activists in organizations across the political spectrum, participate in a gap year, and semesters abroad in Israeli universities.