Beit Berl in the Community

Strategically located at the encounter point between one of Israel’s high-tech centers and the Triangle region of Arab towns, Beit Berl College has carved out a multi-cultural niche, in which Jews and Arabs learn, teach, research and work together in a climate of equality and respect.

In addition, Beit Berl College believes in linking rigorous academic training with excellent field work. The College is proud of its commitment to pluralism and community involvement, advanced in all facets of the College’s life, as well as in programs and centers expressing the College’s values. These include:

Created in cooperation with the alumni of Israel’s leading youth movements, the program prepares hundreds of community activists to stimulate critical thinking and a culture of activism in marginalized communities. Living in Jewish and Arab intentional communities in Israel’s periphery, they work with young people at risk – in formal and community-based education.

Beit Berl College recognizes the importance of providing professional education to teachers and counselors of the Haredi school systems, in order to allow the growing Haredi population the opportunity to interact and work in all aspects of life in Israel. The College provides graduate degrees in educational counseling, as well as B.Ed. and teaching certificate programs for women and men who are either interested in teaching in Ultra-Orthodox schools and boarding schools or are currently teaching in these settings but have only partial educational preparation.

Synergizing its strengths in informal education, youth development and criminology, Beit Berl College runs a number of programs focused on youth at risk, including: A distinctive undergraduate degree program for the staff of boarding schools who work with at-risk youth; a national project allowing recovered drug addicts to achieve a BA; a B.Ed and M.Ed degree programs for dealing with marginalized youth, and more.

Gallery and Center for art, culture and education. Located at the nexus of Tel Aviv’s gallery district and neighborhoods of marginalized populations, the Gallery highlights young artists as well as the avant garde – with exhibits, installations, performance art, video and film, as well as lectures and seminars. The Gallery makes art available for free to the community, creating space for educational activity, facilitating work with surrounding neighborhoods, and providing a focus for the Israeli art community.

Democracy takes place not only at the polling booth, or in the civics classroom, but also on the street – in thousands of civil society organizations throughout Israel. In the 2014-5 school year, we are piloting a service-learning model for students to understand and participate in civil society – as part of their course of study at the College. The community work – in Arab and Jewish towns surrounding Beit Berl – is accompanied by classroom learning, so that students learn about civil society as a basis of democracy, in theory as well as in practice. We seek to build this model into the curriculum of studies.