Wonder, Resilience, Inclusion: What Israel’s Early Childhood Classrooms Taught Me
Posted on 07/10/2026 @ 06:30 AM
By Dr. Yehudis Smith, Director of Early Childhood Education
During my recent trip to Israel, I had the privilege of visiting several early childhood programs and meeting with educators, directors, researchers, and leaders who are shaping the field in powerful ways.
As someone who spends so much of my professional life thinking about young children, teachers, families, inclusion, Jewish identity, and emotionally responsive practice, these visits were deeply meaningful.
Three programs in particular stayed with me: Beit Issie Shapiro in Ra’anana, Wonder School in Tel Aviv, and Hatzav Kindergarten in Jerusalem.
Each one offered a different window into what is possible when early childhood education is treated not as childcare, but as sacred, intentional, visionary work.
At Beit Issie Shapiro, I was given a tour by Galit Cohen Caspi, Director of Global Professional Development (L), and Chana Yamin Cherki, Vice President of Professional Services (R).
Beit Issie Shapiro has long been known as one of Israel’s pioneering organizations in the field of disability inclusion, advancing opportunities and rights for people with disabilities through services, research, training, and model-building.
Their inclusive early childhood work brings together therapeutic support, family-centered practice, assistive technology, emotional therapy, and educational programming in a way that felt both deeply professional and profoundly human.
Their Beit Raz Inclusive Early Childhood Campus serves children ages 0–3 and brings together children with and without disabilities under one roof, with individualized care, therapies, and inclusive programming.
Walking through the space, I kept thinking about our work here in Miami through our new Al Pi Darko Collaborative initiative.
So much of what we are trying to build in our community is rooted in the same belief: that children should not have to “fit” into narrow systems to belong.
Instead, our systems must become more responsive, more knowledgeable, and more courageous.
Beit Issie Shapiro is not simply serving children with disabilities; it is trailblazing models that other communities can learn from, adapt, and aspire toward.
It reminded me that inclusion is not a program. It is a culture, a mindset, and a commitment.
In Tel Aviv, I visited the Wonder School, where I was welcomed by the director, Efrat Shahar. The Wonder School describes its mission as “sparking wonder through progressive, play-based education that views every child as capable, curious, and actively engaged in the world.”
It is a bilingual Hebrew-English, Reggio-inspired school, rooted in relationship-based pedagogy, child-led inquiry, and deep respect for children’s thinking.
This visit was especially moving. Wonder School is located about a 20-minute walk from the beach, in the heart of Tel Aviv, and yet inside the classrooms I saw children making meaning of something much heavier than sand, sea, and summer.
Efrat showed me beautiful child-made artwork that had emerged from the war with Iran.
The children had been creating their own bomb shelters - intricate, imaginative, layered structures filled with color, symbols, drawings, and small details.
It was one of the clearest examples I have ever seen of the power of the Reggio Emilia approach.
Children do not process the world only through words. They process through materials, construction, dramatic play, drawing, conversation, and collaboration.
In those child-made shelters, I saw fear, resilience, creativity, and agency all at once.
The children were not simply “making projects.” They were working through their lived experience.
They were building safety with their hands. They were telling adults, in their own language, what they were carrying.
As educators, we often talk about listening to children. At Wonder School, I saw what it means to truly listen to children - what they say, build, draw, arrange, repeat, and revisit.
In Jerusalem, I visited Hatzav Kindergarten with Dr. Yaara Shilo (L), a leading Israeli early childhood education expert, researcher, educator, founder and director of the undergraduate training program for daycare directors at Efrata College of Education, and an important advocate for early childhood policy reform.
Being in conversation with Dr. Shilo was a gift. She brings together the worlds of research, teacher preparation, policy, and practice in a way that reflects the complexity and importance of early childhood leadership.
There, we were given a tour by Bat-Hen Moualem (R), an outstanding educator who was recently awarded the National Award for Religious Kindergartens in recognition of her exceptional educational work.
Hatzav Kindergarten is a beautiful school, filled with care and intentionality.
One of the most memorable parts of the visit was the garden the children had grown, filled with different kinds of fruit. There was something so simple and so profound about it.
Children had planted, tended, waited, observed, and watched growth unfold over time.
In a world where children are often rushed from one activity to the next, this garden represented a different kind of education: one rooted in patience, responsibility, connection to the land, and wonder.
Across all three visits, I found myself returning to the same thought: early childhood education in Israel is carrying something enormous right now.
These educators are supporting young children in a country shaped by trauma, uncertainty, resilience, deep Jewish identity, and extraordinary communal responsibility.
And yet what I saw was not despair. I saw children creating. I saw teachers reflecting. I saw leaders imagining better systems.
I saw classrooms where belonging was not just spoken about but designed into the environment.
This trip challenged me to think more deeply about what we are building here in Miami:
- How do we create classrooms where every child belongs?
- How do we support educators, so they have the knowledge, confidence, and emotional capacity to respond well?
- How do we make space for children’s questions, fears, creativity, and spiritual lives?
- How do we allow Jewish values to shape not only what we teach, but how we see children?
I returned from Israel with deep gratitude: for the educators who welcomed me, for the children whose work I was privileged to witness, and for the opportunity to bring these insights back to our Miami early childhood community.
Most of all, I returned with renewed conviction that early childhood education is one of the most powerful places to build a more compassionate Jewish future.
It begins with how we see children.
It grows through how we support educators.
It becomes real when our schools become places of dignity, belonging, curiosity, and care.
If you want to learn more about the deeply important work we are doing in the Jewish early childhood community in Miami, please contact Dr. Yehudis Smith at yehudissmith@caje-miami.org
