In a landmark step forward for Catholic-Jewish relations, a group of Jewish educators in Sydney have led over 150 HSC students from 19 Sydney Catholic Schools undertaking their Studies of Religion course on a dedicated study day at Sydney’s Jewish Museum to help them prepare for their upcoming exams.
Alongside 29 teachers from Sydney Catholic Schools, the students gave up a full day of their winter holidays on 12 July to visit the museum.
From Jewish marriage customs and customs around death and mourning, through to sexual ethics and the works of leading Jewish philosophers, the students learned from three Jewish teachers, who provided the students with deep insights into topics covered in the HSC.
The coordinator of the HSC Study Day, Network K-12 Religious Education Officer (Secondary Focus) in the Mission and Identity Directorate at Sydney Catholic Schools, Cathy Brown, said the students and teachers benefited greatly from the authentic input of the Jewish teachers.
“This was very special because it involved three adherents of the Jewish faith, three very educated people and three teachers who know the syllabus well too and so it was also a professional learning day for the Catholic school teachers,” Mrs Brown explained.
“We had both teachers and students who had never met an adherent of the Jewish faith and who had never visited the Jewish Museum and so this wasn’t just a day of lecturing by any means: it was a day of real, fraternal friendship.”
Read the article by Michael Kenny in The Catholic Weekly.