Jody Hirsh

Jody Hirsh began his long journey in Jewish education at age seven in Pittsburgh, PA, when he starred in his temple’s annual Passover musical. He played a lamb bone and still recalls the show-stopping song he performed on that spring evening 51 years ago, set to the tune of “All of Me.” The final lines were:

I stand alone,

A little lamb bone…

They nearly took

ALL OF ME!

That was the beginning of Jody’s commitment to creativity, if not quirkiness, in Jewish education. As comfortable with the stage or art museum as with an advanced Bible class, Talmud shiur, or Hebrew novel, he has sought to make Jewish learning vital, fun, and meaningful.

While completing his B.A. at the University of Wisconsin, Jody taught Hebrew school at a local synagogue where he also wrote and produced plays with his grade-school aged students. His junior year abroad at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem was the spark that pushed him into Hebrew study and Jewish education as a formal career path. Jody’s passion for Israel and for the Hebrew language pushed him to perfect his Hebrew and to study Hebrew literature in regular university classes rather than the special classes offered to foreign students.

Graduate study at UCLA in Modern Hebrew Literature gave him the academic tools to understand and teach Hebrew literature. While in Los Angeles, Jody taught at the Reform movement’s Union Hebrew High School and the Conservative movement’s Los Angeles Hebrew High School, as well as at HUC, the University of Judaism, and UCLA. In 1978, he attended the second Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education. The influence of people at the cutting edge of education who were devoted to creativity in Jewish Education pushed him in the most creative direction. He became the coordinator of CAJE’s first West Coast conference at UC Irvine and served on the CAJE board for six years.

Upon leaving Los Angeles, Jody became the Assistant Director of the San Francisco Bureau of Jewish Education, and later the Outreach Director of Lehrhaus Judaica, a Bay Area institution devoted to Adult Jewish Education. In San Francisco, he wrote “Seeing Double” with the San Francisco Mime Troupe—a slapstick musical comedy about the intifada—which had two national U.S. tours, one international tour, and won the prestigious OBIE Award. He left San Francisco for Jerusalem, where he was a Jerusalem Fellow specializing in Museum Education and where he wrote “The Great King Herod Murder Mystery,” an interactive murder mystery still performed at Jerusalem’s Migdal David Museum, making it Israel’s longest running play.

From Jerusalem, Jody’s education journey led him to Houston, where he was the Jewish Educator at the Houston JCC, then Hong Kong, where he was the Program Director of the Hong Kong JCC, and finally Milwaukee, where he is currently the Director of Judaic Education at the Milwaukee JCC. Who knows what’s next?