We welcome you
We welcome all who want to be part of our Jewish community including, but not limited to folks who are: culturally Jewish, agnostic, atheist, spiritual, self-identified Jewish, Jew~ish, Jew-curious, in an interfaith family, LGBTQ, leaving Judaism, returning to Judaism, freethinkers, humanists, grandparents, singles, couples, parents-trying-to-give-their-kids-good-values-and-a-cultural-identity-in-a-non-religious-setting…
A vibrant Jewish community
Folkshul is a joyful hub of family programs and community activities. A member-run cooperative with a professional staff, Folkshul provides a culturally enriching and meaningful experience.
Our students learn Jewish history, values, mythology, and celebration of holidays. They participate in music, dance, and art and develop social action projects. Special attention is given to relating the “Jewish Experience” to modern day events and issues.
Folkshul is also a family experience with holidays and rites of passage celebrated by the entire community.
Adult members play a critical role in setting policy, developing educational direction, designing social action projects, educating ourselves, and working with staff to develop and strengthen our Folkshul (People’s School).
Secular Humanistic Judaism
Folkshul’s mission is to transmit the values of social justice and human responsibility in an environment that nourishes critical thinking and provides a strong sense of Jewish identity.
“The English word “secular” is an inadequate translation of the Yiddish word veltlich, which means this worldly as opposed to next worldly, profane as opposed to sacred, rationalism as opposed to supernaturalism…
From Max Rosenfeld’s What Is Secular Jewish Education?
The word combination “secular-humanism” better expresses the ideas contained in the word veltlich. This view of Jewish history and tradition holds that the Jews are a people and that religion is only one aspect of Jewish culture. It recognizes the historic importance of religion as a cementing force in the existence of the Jewish people, but does not consider this the sole reason for Jewish existence or the sole explanation for Jewish survival…
The secularists among the Jews base our views on the premise that the Jewish people are more than a religious group; that we constitute a world people; and that as with every modern people there is room in Jewish life for a diversity of opinion, including the secular-humanist view which does not subscribe to the tenets of religion.”
Breit Mitzvah
A Secular Humanistic Bar, Bat, or Breit Mitzvah ceremony signifies a young person’s desire to become more responsible for his/her/their own decisions and actions, and to identify with the many previous generations of Jews. The ceremony acknowledges our youths’ acceptance of the philosophy that we are responsible for our actions, and that our actions affect our own lives and the lives of those around us. It is an expression of the family’s enthusiasm for engaging with the teen in a more mature relationship with increasing interdependence and independence. It is conducted in the embrace of family and community, and in the light of a strong Jewish tradition. Our Bar, Bat, and Breit Mitzvah ceremonies celebrate a time of transition from childhood to adolescence.
The Bar/Bat/Breit Mitzvah process is a program of study and action leading to a ceremony designed by the student and parents/guardians, and guided by the Lifecylces Officiant along with the student’s mentor. The ceremony includes a public presentation in which the child demonstrates his/her/their understanding of some particular aspect of the Jewish experience.
The process is designed to have the child integrate their personal interests with their Jewish values and knowledge. The hope is that this will encourage the student to explore and discover elements of the Jewish experience that are personally meaningful. The process is also designed to be relevant to modern Judaism and reflect ethical, intellectual, and Humanistic principles, as well as welcome the young adult into the worldwide, historical, and local Jewish community.
*Folkshul has adopted non-gendered language as a means to be inclusive not only in thought, but in action and reshaping the way we practice representation justice for all members. Breit Mitzvah means covenant of the commandment, just as Bar/Bat Mitzvah means son/daughter of the commandment. This ceremony is a covenant of the student and their family acknowledging their desire to express, develop and own their Jewish identities and strengthen their relationship to the Jewish and secular world.
A History of Folkshul
Thousands of secular Jews in the Philadelphia area attended the city’s secular schools in decades past. When the North American Jewish Data Bank surveyed the region in 1984, 12% of Jews who identified themselves as “secular” said they had attended a “Yiddish school” or folkshul. So had nearly 6% of all Jews in their 50s. That’s a lot of people. Yet here, and across North America, this history was nearly forgotten, says historian Fradle Pomerantz Freidenreich, author of Passionate Pioneers: The Story of Yiddish Secular Education in North America, 1910-1960. Friedenreich expected to find a handful of schools when she began her research, but was surprised to find hundreds. “It is certainly important, in my view, that everyone appreciates the phenomenal history of the Yiddish secular schools and camps,” Freidenreich noted in an email interview from her home in Israel. “It is an accomplishment that good Jewish schools exist in today’s challenging and busy world.”
The Jewish Children’s Folkshul & Adult Community of Philadelphia “is a direct descendent of the secular Jewish schools that existed in Jewish neighborhoods since the early part of this century,” notes Paul Shane, of Philadelphia, a longtime Folkshul board member. “Most had their origins in the Eastern European Jewish experience. They were organized to transmit the historical and cultural values of our Jewish heritage – and to foster a sense of Jewish identity.”
Four different secular school systems operated in the city at the movement’s height. Each had a different political bent. “There were schools run by the Workmen’s Circle, (an anti-Soviet socialist and anarchist group at the time),” Shane says. “Others were run by the Labor Zionists (socialist Zionist) and the Jewish People’s Fraternal Order (JPFO), (pro Soviet).” Philadelphia, along with Chicago, ranked second only to New York City in the number of secular schools it boasted.
What was it like to be a shula student in Philadelphia? Classes met three to five days a week, after the public school day ended. Older kids might attend a mitlshul (high school) for up to seven hours each week. There was instruction in Yiddish language, literature and culture, Jewish history, and classes in current events. Many major holidays were celebrated. Some shuln students acted in plays put on at Philadelphia’s Arch Street Theater in the 1920s and 1930s. Seventeen schools organized a 200-piece rhythm band that performed regularly on the radio.
“You went to learn to read and write Yiddish,” explains Evelyne Johnson, 88, a fluent Yiddish speaker who attended a shula on 30th Street in Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion neighborhood in the early 1930s. Johnson passed the Folkshul tradition down in her own family: Her daughter and son, as well as her grandson and grand-daughter have all attended the Jewish Children’s Folkshul.
As a child, Johnson spoke Yiddish and English at home with her Polish-born mother and Russian-born father. Her mother’s long involvement with the Labor movement inspired her to send her daughter to the shula. Johnson’s cousins in New Jersey, meanwhile, attended one near Camden. “I still remember so much about it,” she says. “The shula was in a rowhouse. I still remember my teacher’s name – Hershl Sandler. I have a life-long love of Yiddish. I went for three months and learned enough that if I apply myself, I can read some Yiddish today. I wish my mother had pushed me to keep going! ”
In the 1920s and 1930s, such Yiddish schools dotted the streets of Jewish neighborhoods like Overbrook Park and Strawberry Mansion. But by the 1950s and 1960s, numbers dwindled as families moved out of old neighborhoods and as younger generations lost interest in Yiddish – but not in other aspects of Jewish life. “In the 1960s, the focus went from preserving Yiddish language and culture to new ways of fostering a Jewish identity and community. People were finding hope and connection with other Jews around the world through the new state of Israel,” Ross recalls. “When I found Philadelphia’s Sholom Aleichem Club, which included many parents of Folkshul students, I found a new way forward – we didn’t just have to mourn the dying of the old, Eastern European Yiddish world. There was a good future here.”
Today’s Folkshul is the result of many mergers. “By 1955 there were “independent” secular Jewish schools thriving in Logan, West Philadelphia and Strawberry Mansion,” Shane says. “They had been organized by the Jewish People’s Fraternal Order but became independent in response to the ‘red-baiting’ of the McCarthy era.” Those three consolidated, with classes meeting in Germantown in the 1960s. In the 1970s the school formed an alliance with two more — the Kalish Folkshul of Overbrook Park and the Suburban Jewish School in Merion. By the 1980s, the Kalish Folkshul had closed and the Main Line School, facing declining enrollment, melded with the current Folkshul at the recommendation of the Federation of Jewish Agencies.
Folkshul’s going strong in 2011 (And today!). “Our greatest success, which many Jewish communities struggle with, is our teen involvement,” notes Blatt. “We have a unique and meaningful B’nai Mitzvah program. The ceremony is created by the family and highlights the student’s study of a topic of their choosing, that connects them to their Judaism and that is presented to the family, guests and community. But teens don’t drift away after their B’nai Mitzvah. Upon completion of 9th grade, almost all of our teens become assistants, working in classrooms and on community projects. This year 25% of our students are post- B’nai Mitzvah. Who wouldn’t want their teen coming to Sunday School until they leave for college?”