Meet Ari Sharfstein, New to the Tutoring Team at Adventure Judaism

The Adventure Judaism team has four tutors who handle Hebrew education for most of our students.  Being part of a team has the advantage that we can learn from each other and cover for each other. Some tutors have been with us for ages, while others are new to the team. For example, David Speigler has been working with us since 2012 and in contrast, Ari Scharfstein just joined our team in August.

Our tutors are each unique, but they all believe in relational education, meaning they connect with the kids and through the connection, they nourish the students’ confidence and self-worth, enabling the student’s to excel.

I’d like to tell you a little about our newest tutor, Ari Scharstein.

Ari recently moved here from Australia to enter a graduate studies program at CU. He is studying to be a High School Choir teacher. Even before he landed in the US, we hired him to be a songleader and teacher for grades 3-4 in our religious school.

(Rabbi Jamie Korngold’s aside: I’ll admit, people were a little annoyed with me when he arrived and had no Australian accent. He is really from Florida. I had not explained that clearly! Whoops. Fortunately, I was quickly forgiven as our students easily jumped in to join Ari in a fun, energetic song-session.)

Here’s a little about Ari in his own words:

My grandfather is a rabbi with the Reform movement and my mother and I are both songleaders. I spent my high school years as a songleader with NFTY (North American Federation of Temple Youth) and worked as the music teacher and auxiliary Hebrew tutor at Temple B’nai Israel in Gainesville while I attended the University of Florida. I graduated in 2016 and have since held music positions at synagogues in Miami, Florida; Cape Town, South Africa; and Melbourne, Australia. In all three instances, bar/bat mitzvah tutoring was an integral part of my job.

I’m so excited to be part of the Adventure Judaism team. I love experiential education, working with kids, and being outside.  Thanks for the warm welcome!

Ari will be with us for Rosh Hashanah, leading our music and working with our kiddos. Come on out and meet him.