Maxine Segal Handelman

Maxine Segal Handelman is the Director of Life & Learning at the Anshe Emet Synagogue in Chicago, where she has worked for almost 25 years.

In her current role, Handelman oversees High Holiday youth programming and leads the Young Family High Holiday services for several hundred people each year. In collaboration with the Educational Steering Committee, she strengthens the educational experience for all children in the community. This work includes leading Tot Shabbat, monthly Kabbalat Shabbat services and dinners, and family services. At Anshe Emet, Handelman has strived to create meaningful opportunities for families to build lifelong relationships with each other and the wider Jewish community.

“I maintain an intense desire to build a strong Jewish foundation and help craft the best possible Jewish education for every Jewish child,” she writes.

Handelman teaches young family classes as well, including Connecting the Expecting, a Jewish learning class for people expecting their first child. She supervises youth family service leaders and trains a pipeline of teens to lead youth tefillah experiences. In partnership with the clergy and educators at Anshe Emet, Handelman created, and now implements, Family Education Days for Anshe Emet families, between 300 and 400 people.

Prior to her work at Anshe Emet, Handelman served as Early Childhood Education (ECE) Specialist for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) for thirteen years. As a member of the Learning Team, she strengthened USCJ congregations and elevated the quality of Jewish education by supporting the congregations’ early childhood centers and leadership. Handelman also created and organized gatherings for early childhood directors from 250 USCJ ECE programs, providing both in-person and virtual professional development opportunities. Handelman also created USCJ’s New Directors Institute (NDI), a multi-day training seminar for early childhood directors.

Since 2003, Handelman has been a Jewish Early Childhood Consultant. In this capacity, she teaches workshops across North America on topics related to Jewish early childhood education. Handelman has also consulted with Chicagoland early childhood centers on integrating Jewish content into the daily curriculum.

Handelman has authored a number of books, which have become seminal early childhood education resources for the field, including What’s Jewish about Butterflies?: 36 Dynamic, Engaging Lessons for the Early Childhood Classroom (2004) and Jewish Every Day: The Complete Handbook for Early Childhood Teachers (2000).