When Kimber Hamilton chose to send her 18-month-old daughter to the local Jewish preschool, she had no idea that decision would change the course of her life.
In preschool, Hamilton’s daughter forged a lasting friendship with another child who is Jewish and through that seven-years-and-counting friendship the two families have grown close. This friendship is one of many which Hamilton says have enriched her family’s life.
“We broadened our lives immeasurably being part of a Jewish community,” Hamilton says. “I didn’t realize what sort of community I could have and now I feel like we have the best of everything.”
Hamilton, who is not Jewish, is now the director of Kaiserman JCC’s soon-to-open preschool at Temple Brith Achim in King of Prussia.
About five miles south, Sarah Gladwin Camp is living a similar experience.
Gladwin Camp is the director of Beth David Reform Congregation’s preschool, which will open in 2025.
Gladwin Camp says she met Rabbi Beth Kalisch during the pandemic and the two discovered that their values overlapped.
“I had been thinking about opening an arts and social justice preschool for a
couple years at that point and she had a huge education wing…so we started talking and we’re working together now.”
The duo is working to create the Harmony School – a preschool grounded in the arts, social justice and Jewish values.
“At this point I work almost exclusively for Jewish organizations because my values around like kindness and creativity and curiosity and helping kids relate to one another and inclusivity in the world align really well with Jewish values,” Gladwin Camp says. “Jewish values are just human values.”
Both preschools are open to families of all religious backgrounds and family makeups, with inclusion at the forefront in the school philosophies and in their curriculums.
According to Gladwin Camp, who has been involved in a variety of children’s programming for more than 15 years, kids are inherently inclusive.
“I think it’s our culture, our society that tends to lead them off of that,” Gladwin Camp says.
According to Gladwin Camp, giving children the opportunity to interact with kids from different backgrounds and identities prepares them to go out into the world and interact with a fuller spectrum of people. She also believes that exposure to this wide range of identities can help children think more critically about themselves and who they are.
“Like, who am I? What calls to me? What’s my connection to spirituality? What’s my connection to gender? Who do I want to be as an adult? How do I connect to other humans in this world?”
Hamilton has felt the benefits of inclusion in her own family’s experience with getting to know her local Jewish community.
“There’s only benefit from knowing and understanding more, there’s no downside,” Hamilton says.
Hamilton says she has enjoyed the welcoming community and opportunities to learn about Jewish holidays such as Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is the final day of a 10-day period of repentance and reflection which begins the Jewish new year with Rosh Hashanah.
“It’s not just like turning the page on a calendar,” Hamilton says. “It’s an
opportunity to observe yourself and reflect, begin a new year with a clean slate.”
Hamilton’s family now attends the Hanukkah celebrations of her daughter’s friend’s family and has dinner in the sukkah with friends during Sukkot. Sukkot is a week-long Jewish holiday that celebrates the fall harvest.
“The Jewish religion kind of names these things that are a part of having a grateful life,” Hamilton says.
Back in Gladwyn, Gladwin Camp hopes that the curriculum built on Jewish values will show children of all backgrounds the common ground between different cultures.
“For the kids who are not Jewish, they can also see that these same values are awesome, and they probably have many of these same values in whatever spirituality path or whatever religion or whatever culture they are following as well,” Gladwin Camp says.
hross@midatlanticmedia.com
