• NHC's Summer Institute: July 29- August 4, 2024. Registration opens April 25th

    This year’s theme of עִיר מִקְלָט “Ir Miklat: City of Refuge” can be found in a small corner of parshat Matot-Masei (Numbers 30:2 - 36:13). It epitomizes how we want this year’s institute to feel: a space where both the individual and the community at the heart of the Havurah ethos can come together in a safe space to create something meaningful, where our connections are welcoming and inclusive, fun and exciting, relaxing and energizing, and insightful and spiritually significant for our diverse community of participants.

    The Core Team envisions Institute as our City of Refuge--a place that’s safe--this year more than ever. What is it YOU need refuge from? We welcome you to join us at Pearlstone Center for sanctuary and refuge, to renew and refresh, and to play, rest, create and learn with us!

Call for Course Proposals

Check back in late January for 2023 information!

CALL FOR COURSE PROPOSALS:

National Havurah Committee
Summer Institute 2022
July 25- July 31

Do you have a topic you are passionate about?  Have you considered teaching at the Summer Institute?

Apply today!

(application below as well)

The annual Summer Institute will be here before you know it.

We encourage your proposals to keep our theme in mind, which is:

v’Yacheid L’vaveinu
Unite our hearts

*וְיַחֵד לְבָבֵנוּ*
לְאַהֲבָה וּלְיִרְאָה אֶת שְׁמֶךָ

Important Deadlines:

  1. February 1, 2022– The deadline to submit an application to teach a course.
  2. March, 2022– You will be notified some time in March if your course has been accepted.

  3. April 1, 2022– Registration for Institute will open.

A Little Bit of History…

The National Havurah Committee is a community of people of all ages dedicated to deeply rooted, vibrantly creative Jewish living and learning, community building, and tikkun olam (repairing the world). Our volunteer-led community is egalitarian, pluralistic, multi-generational, and highly participatory.

Each year, we hold a week-long Summer Institute plus several weekend retreats. At these gatherings, we live our motto that “every student is a teacher and every teacher is a student” with a wide array of opportunities to learn from each other in different settings and different ways. Courses, which meet daily beginning on the first full day of the Summer Institute, are the backbone of the Institute schedule. Teachers can expect to engage with enthusiastic and passionate students in exploring their chosen subject matter, while also participating fully in all other Institute programming.

Topics: Courses can be on any Jewish subject or the theme that will be announced by the Core Team: text study, religious life, spirituality, contemporary issues, history, literature, art, music, personal growth, meditation, or whatever someone dreams up. The courses taught in-person in 2018 and 2019 can be found here. The Course Committee aims for a balance of topics and styles. Teachers may not restrict their courses by gender, age, religious practice, or ideology, but may require specific background (such as Hebrew reading skills, experience studying Jewish texts, or the ability to read music); please describe the expectations in your application. Proposals focused on topics generally available in the broader Jewish community, such as teaching liturgical skills like reading from the Torah, are not generally accepted.

Teachers and Students: Teachers of Institute courses reflect our community’s wide range of ages, professions, backgrounds, and home communities. We are particularly eager to learn from and with people with identities and Jewish experiences that have been under-represented among our teaching ranks in the past, in recognition of the missed opportunities for rich learning in which our community could have participated with a more diverse set of teachers. Our goal is to recruit and support a teaching team (including course teachers and the array of residencies) that includes a critical mass of Jews of color, Sephardi, Mizrahi [JOCSM], disabled, and/or otherwise under-represented folks. We encourage everyone who is interested in teaching to apply, as the Course Committee aims to assemble a course roster that is diverse along many axes, from teacher background to experience teaching at Summer Institute to course topics and approach. All teachers should expect students with differing viewpoints, and should be open to lively discussion in an environment that promotes openness and mutual respect. If you have any questions about equity and inclusion, please contact the Course Committee.

Format: Most courses meet daily for 1.5 hours each day, Tuesday (26th) through Friday (29th),either in the morning (10:30 am-12:00 pm) or the afternoon (1:45 pm-3:15 pm). In some limited cases, the Course Committee will also consider proposals for 4 extended sessions of 2.5-hours, if a strong case can be made for needing the extra time. Course enrollment is generally capped at twenty to make sure everyone has the chance to participate.

Financial Arrangements: To recognize the work teachers put into their courses and to ensure anyone invited to teach is able to afford to do so, NHC reduces the bottom end of the sliding scale for registration to $0 for teachers. In other words, we are asking teachers to contribute financially according to a broader sliding scale toward the site (including room and board), staff, and other costs of running Institute. Teachers can decide for themselves how much they want to contribute toward the costs of participation. We encourage teachers to contribute financially to the extent they feel appropriate given their circumstances, with any amount teachers contribute as tuition to be considered a tax-deductible donation. Teachers will need to cover costs of travel to and from Hartford, plus any single-room supplements, extra fees for special services, etc. However, we prioritize making the Summer Institute financially accessible to all, including teachers, and teachers are eligible to apply for the available travel grants. Teachers must pay NHC membership dues of $60 per adult or $120 per family.

Course proposals, to be submitted online, are due by midnight on January 22, 2022. You may submit up to two course proposals; please complete the online form for each course. To encourage a mix of new and long-time teachers, those who taught at all of the last 3 consecutive Institutes are not eligible to apply this year.

For further information, contact the Course Committee at courses@havurah.org.

Frequently asked Questions

Curious what a week at an in-person Summer Institute looks like?  Click here to see our program guide from Summer Institute 2019 at the University of Hartford, CT.

*We are hoping to be in-person this year, but as we now know, things can and may change.


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