Israel’s National Educators Aliyah Program Featured with Marc Rosenberg of NBN on JM in the AM

JM the AM good morning. It's a Monday. I told you it's a big day here at JM and the AM. Any day when we have uh some amazing guests joining us is a big day. That's why almost every day here is a big day. It was a pleasure seeing Mark Rosenberg last week in Israel. He's of course the vice president of diaspora partnerships for our friends at Nephesh Benffesh and Nefes Benffesh. Especially as I said earlier, if you're a teacher, make sure your ears are perked up for this conversation. Uh because honestly there's a um there's a new initiative with Nefish Benefish in terms of aliyah that I never thought we would ever discussed and I'll tell you what I mean in a moment. Mark Rosenberg, a pleasure to welcome you back to JM in the AM. >> Good morning. Good morning. >> Uh great to have you here, Mark. Great seeing you last week in response to Israel's growing teacher shortage. And that's this is what I meant. I never thought we'd ever use those words in regard to Israel. There's a teacher shortage. Nephes Nevish in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Ali integration have announced the launch of Israel's first ever national educators aliyah program. The initiative is designed to streamline the aliyah professional integration of qualified Jewish educators from North America and connect them with teaching opportunities across Israel. Mark, I'm assuming this is not a shortage in the limude cesh Judeaic studies area. I'm assuming this is more of a teacher shortage in the secular studies area. Um, you're indeed correct that there's a greater shortage in that especially in teaching English. It's one of the hottest areas that they are interested in trying to recruit for. But there are positions opening in limate coders as well. And one of the big things that Yes. One of the big things about this initiative, there are so many different factors that make it wonderful, is that the way that people publicize these positions is almost like it's so opaque that someone in North America wouldn't find out about it till they're already here, >> right? >> So, it is it's nearly impossible to plan as we always live the dream and plan the dream to say, "Okay, I'm thinking it's November. I'm thinking about coming next summer. I'm an educator. I'm a teacher. What schools are looking to hire?" They know someone's retiring. they know they're adding a class they come in. It's nearly impossible to find that out in like early enough in the year. U and that's one of the many reasons we're getting involved in this project. >> And this is so number one just for the information itself. The information is so valuable because people who are teachers in the education space would love to have advanced notice as you just mentioned of jobs that are available. But again, and I'm sure you you understand my perspective on this. If there was one area that I never thought there would be a shortage in Israel and they have they'd have to reach to the diaspora in order to fill some of those spaces, it would be teaching. And sure enough, here it is. Here's a new initiative because there is in fact a teacher shortage. And when you say uh when you say for instance English language teachers, I mean you're talking about cuz I know there's a lot of you know tutoring when it comes to English as a second language. I know there's always efforts by individual parents and maybe even communities to try to shore up their uh their own children's English skills. But you're talking about formal English classes in I assume elementary and high schools throughout Israel. >> Correct. And many many Israeli students begin already in third grade teaching a second language which is often English. And there are not enough teachers for that. I again my children were in a school that had two two tracks. One is English for Israelis and then English for English speakers. There are not enough there are not enough educators. But I want to challenge you Nakam because I'm sure about now it must be almost 5 years ago when Nepes beneficed its uh physicians program you would say it's crazy that you know there's a shortage of Jewish doctors in Israel and one of the things that we have to appreciate that there are almost 10 million people living in Israel. The growth is really putting a challenge on the system. Um and we have a lot of everyone has kids here. So, it's one of the things that's driving this is the growth of Israel and also some of the challenges of what it means to get into the system and and to get to understand your rights and the benefits that you get as as as a teacher. So, we're trying to combat both parts of it, make sure that it's a smooth system and that the proper the talent the talent comes in. >> Mark Rosenberg is with us live from Israel. So, and I I mean this seriously, for those who are looking not only to move to Israel, but to but to actually make a real contribution to the future of the state of Israel, the the medical space, as you just alluded to, is a great example of that. And I don't think we need to go into any detail of how people are affecting, you know, real change and making a real contribution when it comes to the field of medicine in Israel. But you're saying and and it certainly makes sense after your presentation. You're saying that in the educational teaching field, one can go and make a major impact at this point. >> Correct. Correct. But listen, it's hard. I I'll share my personal experience. I I'm a I'm a I used to be licensed. It expired because I've been here so long. I was a seventh grade English teacher in Washington DC when when when I moved to Israel. And my my vision was to to to to enter in the system and continue in my passion of teaching and also bring my values and have an imprint on a classroom and and a generation of students. That was my idea. And for many years I did like many OIM, I worked in the gap year world. I worked with the 18-year-old students, the young boys, the young women. It was it was a really great experience. And then when I decided to make that leap and say, "Okay, I'm going to get a job in the school system." I hit a big wall mainly because I didn't think Ali was nephish which was a time when you could now everyone from North America comes but I came and I couldn't understand how to get my teaching license recognized I couldn't have someone from from the teachers union advocate for me or explain to me and talk about my years of teaching would account to to to raise my salary so we're in we're we have idealistic people people who come educators do usually do it not to become wealthy they understand that they are going to share wealth with people, wealth of knowledge and experience. So, it's it's not about, you know, making a lot of money, but there's a certain basic level of understanding that you're going to be able to get your credentials recognized and you're going to be put in a space that you can practice your craft and be able to get, you know, your rights to it. And this this program in partnership with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Aliyah are saying that we are going to streamline this process so someone can get their teaching license recognized before they make aliyah. there'll be there'll be pushed opportunities and be able to connect with schools and educators and to say, "Okay, this is I'm moving to this part of the country or this this town. These are the positions that are open and and so maybe there might not be limited codish, but maybe I'll be able to teach a history class or maybe I'll teach English." be able to get people, you know, prepared for the move in such such a way that they understand how much money they can earn, what's the paperwork they need to bring and then and and and how they can build their career in a way that was always it was always an obstacle course for so many people that wanted to have a print imprint and be able to enter in a classroom and do what they they love to do, which is teach children Torah and teach uh teach people how to be good good citizens >> and especially when it comes to English, math, and science. I mean everything as you said earlier everything is really open >> at this point but those three are really critical and those three the obviously the licenses are taken very seriously. Now, I don't know how it I just don't remember from all the medex conversations. I just don't remember if there's an age limit or if there's a, you know, forced retirement age, but what if someone's 65 and they say to themselves, you know, they're a teacher and they've been an experienced teacher for 30 years in the sciences here in the United States, uh, and they want to go to Israel and and do what you just described and maybe spend 10 years doing it. Are are the possibilities open to them? >> The possibilities are indeed open to them. I I always I always say in general it's the same advice I would give someone who's 45 is they have to be able to look at to see is this an environment they're going to be able to practice their craft into it and that's one of the things about the Israeli school system which is which is modernizing and it's opening up and there are some great principles that want the talent into the class and they're going to say if this is the teacher that I'm going to be able to get and they might be able to get you know special recognition say okay for two years we'll be able to bring in this person and then we'll have to deal with retirement age and what we're going to do but there is just an eagerness to just like make the system better and realizing that there are so many people who want to come and they're just given the the the Israeli know, oh, you need to do this or they give the they're given the runaround and we're ending that. We're we're saying that for the for the hundreds of people applying for for like aliyah next year, we're going to make it organized. We're going to be able to have an event online and in person so people can can just see see what's really happening and see if this is right for them and try and match them up with the schools. It's not always going to be perfect. It's it's it's the same story with the doctors. Sometimes there's a opening in the south and they really want to live in the north or they you know they have a home in but the job opportunity is going to be in Ash. So there's there are going to be people that it's not going to work perfectly for but we want we're open up communication and we're opening up the bureaucracy. Now, the the English language uh courses, it's obvious, but I'm assuming the majority of science and math courses are not taught in English. Uh what about the language barrier? What would you say to the teachers who worry about the language barrier? >> So, so it's a great point. So, there are there are uh courses that we're offering for people to improve on their Hebrew. Um it's it's definitely going to be something that you're going to need to work on if it's if you're going to be teaching those subjects. Um, the same things for someone who's teaching Tanakh, they'd have to make sure that their Hebrew is going to be sharp enough. One thing that's really I I just want to, you know, I believe that Israel is a land of opportunities and aliyah opens people up and therefore once I have a I have a friend who's a Tanakh teacher and he became an English teacher, but he uses Tanakh all the time in his English classes, >> right? So there's there are ways that if your passion is science and if your pass it have to see that your passion your skill set is teaching then you can really teach anything and therefore we're looking for an openness that someone might start out as an English teacher but they're going to be able to grow in that and be able to move into it. The system the the ministry of education this these schools have been very rigid about the licensing and very rigid we don't you have to be here to do it. We we we are just seeing an openness to willingness to say, "Okay, again, we're not compromising on everything, but we're going to communicate. We're going to we're going to try and organize the principles to say, okay, how many how many how many positions you have opening?" And you also have some Israeli schools that they're saying, "We we we want modern Orthodox educators or we this is a Kadi school. We're looking for Karedi educators." and they're they're they want to market it and we have a great way to announce it and push it out to these niche audiences so people can get matched up and be the Shad Khan to the schools and educators in in the most efficient way possible. >> We're talking about NEP, Israel's first ever national educators aliyah program designed to streamline alyan professional integration of qualified Jewish educators in North America and connect them with teaching opportunities across Israel. Has anybody in your uh in your organization been assigned to lead this effort yet or we haven't gotten to that stage yet? >> Um we have the strategic person who's really been um working the phones and the offices to do it, but we're uh we're still uh working out some of the technical details to make sure that we're doing we're we've received a beautiful amount of uh beautiful response from people who have made aliyah re Yep. from people who have made alo recently saying this is needed. I'm in the system and this is going to help us more. Some people have volunteered to be mentors. Um and other organizations are saying this this this change is happening and this is going to it's going to energize it. I think there's also something nakum that is that we feel as as OIM that sometimes we can't always raise our voices because we think we should add something to the school and the teachers have that influence when they're inside the the faculty meetings and there there's a nice recognition that the more amount of OIN teachers that come that come in then the quality is also going to go up and it's really exciting to see that and we saw we saw that with the physicians as well the hospitals really remarked that the the quality of their hospitals went up when these OI ale doctors brought their personality and their skill sets as well. So, it's it's really really exciting to see how how organized it is and strategically. Now, we're excited to really bring it into action. >> Should people use the general website uh at this point or is there a special one that's already been set up? What should people do? Um we are um we have we have a special email that's set up and the idea or the land we we ran so fast that the the landing page was not ready um ready to go yet because all you know we we we are all about accuracy when it comes to making sure that people are getting all the information. I believe the email address is mimol nbn.org.io More oim. >> M O R >> M O R I M L I M I would assume. >> Yep. More OIM at MBN. And that's that's where we're channeling all the all the excitement and information and we're we're going to have be having a series of webinars and some newsletters that are going to go out for people want to follow this. It it's it's exciting because like I I still introduce myself Nakma as an educator when I meet people right and there there there's there's a skill set and passion that educators have teachers educators formal informal and there's just this barrier because the Hebrew language and it's a it's a system that's very different because like most Jewish listeners to your network are are sending their kids to a private schools and here they're going to think about sending their kids to a religious public school here in Israel. It's very very different. So to be able to bring that that quality and and and knowhow and and and passion is go is is is is remarkable. We've seen schools transform. We see communities transform and it's just going to be something that's going to help in the spread of OIM to other communities because they're going to be okay there's a great here's a great school and I want to live near a great school or these teachers are going there. It's just going to be um something a net positive for Israel. Moreim olim means uh uh teachers who are immigrating to Israel who are making aliyah. Use that email address mim.nb nbn.org.il mimolnbn.org.il. It's Nephesh for Nephesh with their brand new first ever national educators ali program. They are looking for teachers from North America as Israel's education system faces this shortage particularly in the areas of English, math, and science um to consider heading to Israel and getting all the information now in advance. You don't have to wait till you get there. You actually get everything in advance and plan out your aliyah around uh your profession, but in a new position, a new job in the state of Israel. Mark Rosenberg is vice president the diaspora partnerships for Nefish Benefish. Mark, I thank you for this. It's an amazing initiative. I take this opportunity to wish you a shout out to thanks so much for joining us this morning. >> To all your listeners and wish you a year. >> I appreciate that. More coming up. You're listening to a Monday morning edition of JM in the A.M.