KIVUNIM
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Mission Statement
KIVUNIM succeeds in delivering an immersive and transformative gap year experience of serious academic study, focused international travel and cross-cultural dialogue. These take place within the context of impressive intellectual and aesthetic exploration and growth that develops and deepens our students’ Jewish identity as engaged global citizens. KIVUNIM students forge a lifelong connection with Israel and the Jewish people through thoughtfully and intentionally-designed travel experiences that impart what other Jewish education programs can only envy: a nuanced and integrated understanding of Jewish civilization through sophisticated contact with the remarkable spectrum of religious traditions, cultures and world views among which the Jewish people grew throughout our 2,000-year Diaspora. Israel, our gap-year program home for the academic year, provides a challenging and surprisingly inspirational setting for appreciating the possibilities of Muslim-Jewish and Christian-Jewish co-existence and informs our broader international encounter with “the other.”
About This Cause
KIVUNIM’s intellectual goal is challenging, but our educational opportunity is unparalleled and boundless. Rarely does a college professor have the opportunity to compliment classroom presentations with experience in the field. KIVUNIM combines classroom academics with the experiential; not for a one day or even a one week in-depth encounter, but all year for all courses. Not only does the classroom inform the field experience, but the field experience enhances the classroom and opens new vistas for students accustomed to using only their eyes and ears to study. Studying about and then traveling to 12 different countries where our students move between approximately 70 cities, towns and villages worldwide, entering some of the acknowledged greatest museums of the world, visiting some of the most expressive archaeological sites, meeting some of the most distinguished thinkers, writers, political and religious leaders, artists, musicians, poets…the intellectual growth and expansion made possible by this fully integrated approach is uniquely powerful. Our teachers often redesign the standard form of their lectures to include several elements within the historical narrative and in direct relation to the itinerary of the related KIVUNIM travel. Anticipating a site visit both strengthens the field experience and heightens the sense of integration KIVUNIM seeks between our two central realms of encounter. KIVUNIM’s ultimate educational goal is the seamless integration between field and text; between the world of ideas and the reality of the “street.” The power of conceptual and intellectual integration is the ultimate (and all-to-often illusive) goal of a liberal arts education. Its purpose is expressed beautifully by Seneca (Moral Epistles 88.20): “Why do we train our children in the liberal arts? It is not because these studies can grant someone virtue, but because they prepare the soul for accepting it.” KIVUNIM represents the beginning of a unique intellectual journey for our students and our staff and faculty. KIVUNIM succeeds in creating a thoughtful, comprehensive, and resilient intellectual foundation for our students and alumni.