An "Israel Education Month" in Jewish schools in the United States will begin, for the first time, this coming week. The project, a joint initiative of the Jewish Agency's education department and the United Jewish Communities umbrella organization, will begin on Sunday with Tu B'Shvat [a form of a Jewish Arbor Day] ceremonies. Organizers say that the Jewish education community in North America is "challenged with the need to infuse positive interest and excitement about Israel in educational settings." Israel's poor image in the media, and the "growing number of people who refrain from visiting Israel," they say, is a "dangerous threat to the relationship between North American Jews and Israel."



Goals of the program include to inject new excitement into "the engagement with Israel beyond the current situation" and to encourage educators to reassess Israel's place and role in their educational settings. The program will also aim to to empower the educators to "hard-wire" Israel into the educational agenda, and to enable and motivate them to encourage students to build meaningful connections to Israel.



The program will include elements such as:

* Community "House Calls" - in which educators in the forefront of the "Israel experience" are available for "house-calls" to communities in North America;

* A set of movies that provide a glance into Israel society;

* Libi B'Mizrach, a satellite rabbinic conference on Jan. 30 in cooperation with the UJC Rabbinic Cabinet. It currently does not include a representative from Israel's "religious-Zionist yeshiva" or "hareidi" communities; Arutz-7 is in touch with the organizers on this issue;

* Israel Education Month Quiz for students aged 10-15, and a special prize drawing on March 2;

* Special programs for students in grades 2-5, grades 4-7, and grades 7-12, and university students;

* Guide for Israeli Advocacy: Background information and talking points on important Mideast issues;

* Israel Education Resource Center;

---and more.