Sofía Weinman, a recent graduate of the Melton Center's Masters Blended Program specializing in Jewish Education, was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, where the she participated in the Habonim Dror youth movement. Later, she moved to Buenos Aires and studied at the Martin Buber School. After attending the Machon le-Madrichim program in Israel, she began teaching at various schools. She studied at the Beit Hamejanej Haiehudi and has also taken courses at Yad Vashem. She obtained a degree in psychology from the University of Buenos Aires and a specialization in Psychoanalysis and Socio-Educational Practices from FLACSO (the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences). She is currently completing a specialization in Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychology, and she works in the Youth Department of the Sociedad Hebraica Argentina.

How was your Master's Degree experience, and in what way do you think it contributed to you?

Sofia: It was a pleasure and a privilege to be able to study at the Hebrew University and to make the most of that opportunity. The quality of the teachers we had in all subjects was superb. It offered a nice space for exchange between colleagues and for networking, allowing each of us to learn about the realities of other types of institutions and communities, and to understand how things work in other countries.

At the same time, the Master's degree helped me to formalize a lot of knowledge in a framework of formal academic study at a high level. I learned about many different aspects of the Jewish world, the particularities of different communities, and about Israel. In addition, the studies related to different aspects of Jewish education, innovation, etc.

I think that the Master's degree provides an interesting starting point in positioning ourselves as professionals with new tools, in relation to community, management, innovation resources, and various teaching strategies, to be able to carry out our job in a better way and take on new professional challenges.

What memory - perhaps of some work that you did for one of your courses - would you like to share?

S: Well, one of the last subjects I took, which made a great impression on me, interested me a lot, and motivated me to study, was Contemporary Judaism, with Dr. Yossi Goldstein, in which we studied everything to do with the concept of community and the transformations that the "kehilla" has undergone throughout history. We looked at how community models differ and change against the background of their respective contexts, with the social environment and the political, social, economic, and cultural situation unique to each place and each country.

I chose this field for one of my two seminar papers. My seminar paper examined the concept of community; how it has been transformed over time – especially in the particular case of Buenos Aires; its place in relation to the most hegemonic, most traditional, established, best-known or largest institutions, and the place of young people who have a need to feel included within the Jewish community framework, but who until now have not found their place. In particular, I studied the case of the LGBT movement in Buenos Aires, and the different organizations that were created out of necessity and the demand of young people who wanted and demanded a place in the Jewish community but did not feel accommodated.

I think that what this allows us to think about is a model of a Jewish community that transforms itself, that is on the move, that responds to changing needs and circumstances, and that is open to being influenced or transformed by young people with ideologies who want to continue living their lives within the community framework.

It allows us to think of a Judaism or a Jewish community that is inclusive of differences, that accommodates the diversity of ways of living Judaism. I think – and this is my own perspective – that in the medium and long term, this will strengthen the Jewish community. Instead of segregating or expelling, it can accommodate and include.

In conclusion, what message could you give to other Jewish education professionals?

S: Well, first of all, the importance of continuing one's training. It seems to me that training is always ongoing; it doesn't end when one finishes a degree, nor when one gets a job. Part of our responsibility as educators and as educators in the Jewish network, and in institutions that have to do with the continuity of the Jewish people, is the responsibility for our own growth and development; to continue working on ourselves.

Also, I would invite them to view the Master's degree as an opportunity to train academically at a top-level institution. 

At the same time, I would like to convey the idea of the teamwork that is involved - setting up networks, setting up networking spaces, and working in a collaborative and supportive way. I think we need to understand each other, each participant and his or her background, as part of a team that works for the continuity of the Jewish people and for spaces for education. If you are an educator, then wherever you are at the moment, in whichever institution you find yourself, in whatever role you occupy, you have a very important place in the task that we are all carrying out together. It seems important to me that we see each other from that perspective, as part of the same team, pursuing the same objective. The Master's degree is an opportunity and an invitation to work more closely together, to allow greater exposure for the work we do, to share the educational resources that we create, and our positive or negative experiences. This allows for better collaborative work, while also contributing to the important aim of simply understanding each other.

I think that the importance that Jewish education has for me is not always recognized materially or economically or symbolically. I think it's important that we see ourselves as tools for building a possible future, and that makes our task much more relevant. It seems to me that as professionals in Jewish education, we have the task of building a space that transcends us, it transcends the people we are today, and for that, we have to work hard. For that, we have to understand and be aware of the relevance of the work we do, and I invite us all to be proud of the work we do. It is truly worthwhile; these are things that do not have an immediate effect, and often we have to overcome the difficulties of the context or environment, and deal with a lot of questions that have to do with being able to dedicate ourselves to the work that we do. But I think it's a job worth pursuing, continuing, and doing well. And to do it well we have to train.