Retell: Ancient Jewish Stories Reimagined
Learning With Your Own Havruta
Course Details
People sitting around campfires telling stories: it's the most ancient of human behaviors. The tradition of that behavior is alive and well especially at summer camp. In cabins, at flagpoles, and even, yes around campfires, stories get told and retold. Similarly, Jewish tradition brings with it a long legacy of storytelling: the telling of Torah. These stories get told and retold, usually as part of religious services in houses of worship.
This course attempts to combine the human and Jewish traditions of telling and retelling stories by re-imagining the morality tales of the Torah as stories that could be told at camp and used as tools for a variety of teachable moments. You will learn four 'new' stories, each inspired by a passage from the Torah but retold for young, modern ears. And you will get to unpack the process of how these stories were told and interpreted, and apply your own voice to that process.
Perfect for use at camp and other educational settings! Great for educators of small children and people who use storytelling regularly in their lives.
Jon Adam Ross is a founding artist and the executive director of The In[heir]itance Project, a national arts nonprofit that works with communities to build relationships across divides through collaborative theater projects inspired by shared cultural touchstones. As an actor, Jon has performed in over 90 cities around the globe. He holds a BFA in acting from NYU/Tisch.
