by Sharona Eshet-Kohen
The Alma Center, a new addition to the Jeanie Gluck High School Academy for Girls in Bet El, offers a unique new program for 12th graders.
A new program has opened up for 12th grade students at the Jeanie Gluck High School Academy for Girls in Bet El, via the new Alma Center, with the goal of instilling confidence about subjects that are often at the forefront of young women's minds - womanhood, maturation, marriage, intimacy, family life, and much more.
The program hopes to turn out women who are capable, strong, resilient, and who have a clear worldview that will aid them when they begin sherut leumi [national service] next year, when they get married, and in life in general. For many of these young women, sherut leumi will be the first time they leave the comforts of their homes and school and live independently - albeit still within the framework of a program - and the course aims to give them the ability to begin the next stages of their lives in a healthy manner.
As of this year, the course has been fully integrated into the curriculum as a weekly workshop with teachers and biweekly sessions with a counselor. The classroom itself is organized with great intention. It includes many elements of nature and conveys a style of simplicity, roundness, and femininity. It is meant to induce conversation about nature, the body, the neshama, and the great role and mission of women. The workshops make use of videos, arts and crafts, art, relaxation methods, and movement and dance.
Corona has created several difficulties for an intimate program such as this and the Center is working hard to overcome the challenges. When allowed, the students come to the High School in small capsules, which actually suits the personal and intimate nature of the program. During lockdowns the workshop moves to Zoom, with both the educators and the counselor holding sessions according to the same schedule.
The course creates a space for students to bring their internal world into a safe and open space - to ask about all things relating to womanhood, maturation, and relations between men and women, and to clarify ideas such as What is a family? What is the status of family among the Jewish People? How do we build a Jewish home? What is the G-dly mission that exists in the relationship between a husband and wife?
Students who participate have shown great enthusiasm for the course, waiting for each week it in anticipation and requesting from the school to offer more courses like it. The course is not a preparatory course for the Bagrut degree, so it is not funded by the State. However, the Academy decided to invest in it anyway, seeing great value to providing these young women with a course that prepares them instead for life.