About Us

Welcome to BJEP on the Brandeis campus

What our Jewish learning program offers your family?

Our students look forward to coming to the Brandeis campus on Sunday mornings to learn in a way designed for kids. We’re more like summer camp than school. Our educators in the classroom, who are Brandeis students, put a fun twist on learning while fostering critical thinking, communication and leadership skills. Through art, music and games, kids explore their Jewish values and Jewish identity, holiday celebrations, eco-Judaism, and Hebrew.

  1. BJEP experience:  our program cultivates learning, and is crafted to be a catalyst for Jewish growth and development.  Brandeis student teachers lead experiential learning and cultivate the experience of joy and amazement and serve as role models in the classroom.  The Boston-area Jewish Education Program is a bit of a mouthful, we just say BJEP (pronounced Bee-jep).
  2. Our Educators:  see the best and the brightest of Brandeis undergrad students as they take the lead and offer joy and amazement in their classrooms.
  3. Programs:  BJEP’s primary Jewish learning program is for students in grades K- 7th. We also offer supplemental programs throughout the year, including: Seedlings (ages 4-5), Hebrew tutoring, Madrichim teen program (i.e., leadership opportunity for grades 8-12), and B-Mitzvah program (i.e., a cohort-based program for students to study together as Jewish scholars and prepare for this important milestone).
  4. Values:  Jewish values are embedded within our program for inspiration, and seed a Jewish identify for our children.  From treating each other well and with kindness, to valuing the world around us.
  5. Location/Timing:  We meet on Sunday mornings, 9:30-noon on the Brandeis campus.
  6. How we measure success: if BJEP’s values inspire your child(ren) to lead, and/or become a teacher, doctor, social worker, researcher, author, nurse, conductor, lawyer, astronomer, judge, musician, to name just a few.
  7. Our founding on the Brandeis campus:  we are grounded in the ideals of our program’s founding ethos over 5 decades ago, and guided by the value of  carrying on our traditions and practices, but also that Jewish tradition learns and grows from our own insights and lived experiences.  The practice of Tikkun Olam, or to repair the world, is one of the values embedded within the BJEP program.

BJEP In the news:

  1. Mentoring undergraduate Jewish Educators, as featured on the Brandeis Jewish Experiences website.
  2. We value programs that allow our students to Be an Upstander, Use Your voice
  3. Still bee-ming from our Purim festival and partnership with the Lemberg Children’s Center, read more in Pollinator Gardens Springing Up in Your Neighborhood.
  4. Learn about how our B’Nai Mitzvah Cohort Connects Modern Issues to Torah in BJEP’s B-Mitzvah cohort-based program

Our Commitment to DEIA:

We are a community of families looking for a welcoming and inclusive program that builds a strong Jewish identity for our kids, inspires innovation and positive change. BJEP is committed to diversity within our community regardless of Jewish identity and practice, interfaith family composition, life experiences, identity and race. Drawing from 20+ communities across Greater Boston, our families seek a positive and joyous experience in our Jewish journey that reflects our common values, morals and social responsibility.

From right, Riley Miner, ‘25, helps 4th grade students Dylan Hoffman, Leah Urovitch and Sammy Lipsom, make Matzah during the Boston-area Jewish Educational Program (BJEP) session at the Shiffman Humanities Center on March 19, 2023. Photo/Gaelen Morse