Makom: Creative Downtown Judaism

Makom – meaning place or space in Hebrew – is a joyous, grassroots, downtown community, building traditional and progressive Jewish life in Toronto since 2009. Makom creates an inclusive and diverse space, committed to Jewish questioning and learning, arts and culture, spirited prayer and ritual, and social and environmental activism. For more about Makom, please see our video and website.

Downtown Jewish Playschool

Now in its third year, and set to run in two different locations in 2014-15, Makom’s Downtown Jewish Playschool is an innovative, alternative, and pluralistic five-day-a-week after-school program for children in JK through Grade 2, hosted in a public school during the school year. The program mixes Hebrew language immersion and Jewish learning. Hebrew language learning is immersive and consists of arts & crafts, outdoor play, drama, sports, etc., all in Hebrew. The Jewish learning model is play-based, teaching Jewish culture and traditions in a pluralistic and inclusive fashion, fostering creativity and independent thinking, spirituality, nature appreciation, outdoor physical activity, and Jewish ethics (including social and environmental values). To learn more about Playschool, please see our slideshow.

Playschool Mission & Learning Objectives

Makom’s Downtown Jewish Playschool educates, inspires, and creates community among diverse Jewish children in downtown Toronto through creative, substantive, and pluralistic after-school Jewish learning and Hebrew immersion.

The program’s learning objectives are to:

• Enhance children’s Jewish identities and meaningful connections to Jewish life;
• Teach Jewish values, traditions, and culture utilizing a pluralistic and joyous approach;
• Engender a love, enjoyment, and appreciation of the Hebrew language; and
• Create a rich and immersive linguistic environment in which students talk, sing, and play in Hebrew, and thus develop skills of understanding, speaking, reading, and writing in Hebrew.