Kollel Overview

SVARA’s Teaching Kollel is a two-year learning and teacher education program designed to train queer and trans aspiring educators, facilitators, and leaders in both the SVARA method of teaching Talmud and the creation of radical bet midrash-centered communities of Jewishly rooted, svara-dik learners around the world.

This rigorous two-year fellowship, which runs from September through June, seeks to train and support a new generation of queer and trans teachers and leaders who will make empowering and transformative experiences of Talmud study accessible to all.

Upon graduation from SVARA’s Teaching Kollel, Fellows will be equipped to implement ongoing SVARA-method bet midrash learning in their home communities, making empowering and transformative experiences of Talmud study as a traditionally radical spiritual practice accessible to all.

SVARA’s Teaching Fellows will emerge with a new lens through which to view the Talmud, the bet midrash setting, the pedagogy of Talmud teaching, the teacher-student relationship—and the Jewish tradition itself. Over the course of two years, Fellows gain the skills and experience to allow them to upend the educational power dynamics of all-too-many conventional Jewish educational settings, shifting the focal point from teacher to learner, and transforming the bet midrash environment to one of critical pedagogy, clear methodology, rigor, love, and empowerment.

The SVARA Teaching Kollel provides comprehensive training and individualized mentorship to support SVARA Fellows to:

Teach daylong and ongoing, weekly Talmud learning sessions in the SVARA method
Develop, nurture, and facilitate bet midrash communities for mixed-level learners
Address the unique experiences of queer and under-represented learners in the bet midrash
Bring the values underlying SVARA’s methodology into their lives, teaching practice, and leadership beyond the bet midrash setting

Each graduated SVARA Fellow will implement a local, ongoing SVARA-method bet midrash community. These batei midrash will support a movement of Talmud learning that invests in those who have been denied access to the tradition to become empowered to grow into their role as interpreters and shapers of our tradition and the world in which they live.

Program Overview

Year One

In the Learning Year, Fellows will be expected to learn weekly in chevruta (2 hours), attend a weekly online shiur (2 hours), explore and analyze articles & readings from the field of contemporary critical Talmud scholarship, participate in a monthly meeting with a faculty mentor, and attend two online intensives.

Year Two

In the Pedagogy Year, Fellows will be expected to learn weekly in chevruta (2 hours), attend a weekly online shiur (2 hours), explore and analyze articles & readings about critical pedagogy / democratic education, attend two online intensives and teach two six- to eight-week SVARA-method bet midrash programs in their home community or online.

Overview & Expectations

WEEKLY SHIUR (2 hours/week) – Fellows will participate in an online weekly shiur led by a SVARA faculty member. We will meet weekly on Thursdays from 2:00-4:00 PM ET / 1:00-3:00 PM CT / 11:00-1:00 PM PT, beginning September 1st, 2022 through June 1st, 2023. If this timing presents a conflict for you, please let us know as soon as possible.
WEEKLY CHEVRUTA (2 hours/week) – Fellows will maintain a weekly chevruta practice for at least 2 hours with another Teaching Fellow.
INTENSIVES – During each year of the fellowship, we will convene two online intensives. Participation is mandatory at all intensives over the two years. Dates for the 2022-2023 online intensives are listed on the kollel calendar.
- NOTE: We value the ways in which learning online increases access for so many people in our learning community, and helps us deepen our relationships to this practice that holds us across time and space. We also recognize the power of in-person gatherings, and have begun to make plans for incorporating an annual in-person gathering for our Kollel community across cohorts, including graduated Fellows, to complement our online learning. We aim to hold this gathering in Summer 2023, and will share dates and information about this as soon as we can.
MONTHLY MENTORSHIP MEETINGS (1 hour/month) – Fellows will meet with a SVARA faculty member for one 45-minute-long mentorship meeting each month via video conference.
PRACTICUM (6 hours/week while in session) – During the pedagogy year, Fellows will teach two six- to eight-week batei midrash in the SVARA method—one in the fall, and one in the spring—either independently or in partnership with a local institution, with support and coaching from SVARA Faculty throughout (PEDAGOGY YEAR ONLY)