Dana Foster
History teacher Dana Foster is one of three new teachers who will be joining the high school faculty this year.
Foster grew up in Montgomery County and attended the University of Maryland. Earlier in her career, Foster was a civics teacher trainer where she taught other educators how to teach civics, and most recently, worked as the Education Director at B’nai Shalom of Olney Congregation in Maryland.
From a young age, Foster wanted to be a teacher. She enjoys working with students and helping them understand and connect to history. Earlier in her life, Foster felt she did not know enough about the government and was eager to learn more, which sparked her interest in history. She also attributes her love for history to her tenth grade history teacher who inspired her passion for sharing history with others.
“My biggest goal is for students to see history through the lens of their own eyes and the lens of current days,” Foster said. “So many times people are like ‘history is so boring,’ but history isn’t boring if you are able to connect it to your own life. So when we talk about Ancient Rome and their foundations of government and how that impacts [the upcoming presidential] election this fall, what is the thread that connects history to today?”
Foster encourages student-centered learning and more cooperative group work during class. She favors hands-on activities that allow students to be continuously active and participating.
“I hope to help them [students] discover their wings and figure out their paths forward,” Foster said.
This year Foster will be teaching freshman and sophomore history classes at the ECP level. She is excited to join the CESJDS community and looks forward to the coming year.
“I’m really excited about the kehillah,” Foster said. “We just had our three days of the teacher training, and everybody has just been so warm, so supportive, and I’m just so excited to be in a community with students and teachers and administration that [are] so caring for each other and that that’s part of the mission, that we care for each other.”
Maharat Ruth Friedman
Returning from a year living in Nairobi, Kenya, Maharat Ruth Friedman is the newest addition to
the high school’s Jewish text department.
Friedman spent the year with her family in Kenya working as a visiting scholar at the Nairobi Hebrew Congregation. Previously, she worked for ten years as a clergy member of the Ohev Sholom Congregation in Washington, D.C. Friedman attended Barnard College in New York, and later went on to be among the first graduates of Yeshivat Maharat, one of the first yeshivas to ordain women for the Orthodox clergy, founded in 2009. In her role at Ohev Sholom, she became the first woman to be the sole leader of her open Orthodox shul.
As JDS is a pluralistic school with students from many different Jewish and cultural backgrounds, Friedman hopes to create an environment for many different opinions and beliefs to coexist. She hopes to encourage collaboration and discussion between beliefs while studying Jewish texts.
“I feel very passionately about helping people, helping students find meaning in [Jewish literature and Torah], in their own way,” Friedman said. “I don’t believe that everything will resonate with everybody, but I do believe that there is something for everybody.”
Friedman is also looking forward to studying and teaching Torah in an academic setting, such as JDS, that puts an emphasis on learning and encourages students to ask deep questions with its core value of Torah Lishmah, or love of learning. This school year, Friedman will be teaching ninth grade Politics in the Age of Kings, tenth grade Talmud and 12th Talmud.
“I also think that it’s really important to be able to help students, particularly in high school, really find their own voice within all of these texts, some of which are 2000-plus years old,” Friedman said. “If there’s one thing I want students to leave my classes with, it’s knowing that they should feel empowered to find their own voice within these texts.”
