The Jewish Week – Poland’s Lauder e-Learning School Makes the Mark

In a feature section, the Jewish Week interviewed Hadassah Buchwald-Pawlak, the founder of Poland’s Lauder e-Learning School. Here is a snippet of the piece about the remarkable online program that is certified by Poland’s Ministry of Education.

Like many current members of her homeland’s Jewish community, Buchwald-Pawlak, 35, was raised with no Jewish education – she did not find out she was Jewish until she was 11, when Communism collapsed, when her mother informed her that they were moving to Israel, where Buchwald-Pawlak lived for several years.

She says she designed the e-Learning program — along with her husband, Polish-born Maciej Pawlak, director of the Lauder-Morasha School — for fellow Polish Jews who have little exposure to organized life in their hometowns.

“Imagine discovering you are Jewish and living hundreds of miles from the nearest Jewish community. What do you do?”

“Until recently,” Rabbi Schudrich answers his rhetorical question, “you could read books or come to a summer program. Now, thanks to Hadassah and the Lauder e-Learning program with their highly dedicated and outstanding teachers, there is something you can do. [Parents] are no longer without hope for deeply educating [their] children Jewishly.”

Judged a success, the e-Learning program has subsequently expanded to Germany, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Read the full article here.