Mark Buckley

Students engaged in interfaith dialogue during their visit.

Sophomore Ari Rein was enthusiastic to see a private Catholic high school unlike his own, when he signed up for the visitation program to Bishop McNamara High School (BMHS). He couldn’t wait to experience conversations about faith and values that he knew he would partake in throughout the day. As someone who has gone to a Jewish school for his entire life, Rein was excited to learn about school experiences unlike his own could be like and connect with new kinds of people.

On Oct. 29, 11 JDS students travelled to BMHS in continuation of a growing collaboration between the two schools. During the trip students connected over shared values like love and collaboration, free time and smaller tours of the school. Students from BMHS will be visiting JDS later in the school year. 

This year the trip consisted of introductions of students from both schools and icebreakers, followed by structured conversation led by BMHS students about values. This was a change from tours and less structured visits in previous years. One thing that surprised Rein was the similarity in the values of BMHS and JDS students, despite the difference in religion.

“Culturally and in terms of values and community, we all seem to be fairly aligned,” Rein said. “Which was very interesting just because of different backgrounds we come from, and how we study the text and faith and religion in such a different context.”

The JDS students were accompanied on the trip by history teacher Mark Buckley, Jewish text teacher Maharat Ruth Balinsky Friedman and English teacher Dr. Thomas Worden to BMHS. 

While Rein and other JDS were excited to experience a day with Catholic and Christian students, BMHS senior Ava Wheeler appreciated the opportunity to learn more about Judaism. While seniors at BMHS take a world religion class in which they learn about Judaism, Wheeler felt that hearing about the experiences of Jews first-hand helped her get a better sense of the religion.

“It was a different type of learning,” Wheeler said. “I felt like I was really getting educated on the faith and on just what life looks like as somebody who’s Jewish, rather than just hearing, ‘Jewish people do this. Jewish people do that.’”

The conversation about faith and shared values between the schools, included one on one discussions with students who had similar values, and a group wide discussion about how the values each person chose manifested in their lives. After this, the students gathered together in a circle and ate lunch while getting to know each other. Buckley noticed that the students were all interested in forming connections with one another.

“The students just all sort of pulled tables together and made it a point to sit down and talk,” Buckley said. “And it was really obvious that the cordiality and the engagement was through everyone.”

That engagement continued throughout the tour which preceded lunch. JDS students were split up into groups and were shown around the school by BMHS seniors, while the faculty chaperones were shown around the school by a BMHS staff member.

Wheeler’s favorite part of the day was the tour because she felt it allowed her to connect with JDS students more individually. 

“It was nice being able to show people around, but I also feel like that sparked up a lot more questions,” Wheeler said. “And so we got to learn a little bit more about each other … We got to really connect, and we got to talk about our different interests.”

After the tour, all of the students sat in on theology classes to learn about religious education at BMHS. They then went to a brief wrap up in BMHS’s chapel and visited the Campus Store before returning to JDS.

When the partnership between the two schools started four years ago to connect students from different religious backgrounds, faculty from each school were mainly in charge of the programming separately, according to Buckley. The partnership currently includes visits to both campuses and joint community service projects. In the future Buckley hopes to get people from each school to the others’ sports games and performances.

As the collaboration progresses, Buckley hopes to make the planning process more collaborative between the schools, hold more events and involve the students in creating the programming as well. Rein, Buckley and Wheeler are all looking forward to BMHS’s visit to JDS in the spring.

“We had to talk about community today, but I feel like both communities are very, very strong,” Wheeler said. “At McNamara, we like to say that we’re one big family, and I really do feel like that is a thing at JDS too.”