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What is the Chevra Jewish Homeschooling List?
Is the Chevra List open to anyone?
Who may join the Chevra List?
Who may NOT join the Chevra list?
What should I do if I am a Jewish homeschooler and I would like to join this list?
Is it okay to join this list if I am still in the information-gathering process and am not yet homeschooling?
What kinds of topics are appropriate for the Chevra List?
What kinds of topics are NOT appropriate for the Chevra List?
What is an appropriate response when I am hurt or angered by another list member's post?
What if that doesn't work?
What do those funny groups of letters I see in some posts stand for?
Is the Chevra List moderated?
Are there guidelines for posts to the Chevra List?
How does the list manager deal with violations of these guidelines?
Is is okay to quote from posts on the Chevra List?
How private is the information that I post to the Chevra List?
The Chevra Jewish Homeschooling List is an e-mail list for Jewish parents who are homeschooling their children. Because Jews are a minority in the homeschooling community and homeschoolers are a minority in the Jewish community, this list is an attempt to build a community of our own where we can ask for and offer support, share ideas, and celebrate and mourn together as Jews.
No. Upon receiving your subscription request, the list manager will contact you and ask you for some information about you and your family and your journeys through Judaism and homeschooling.
Homeschooling parents who are raising their children as Jews. The list is open to Jews of all denominations and levels of observance who are homeschooling. The list is open to homeschoolers of any persuasion and structure who are also Jewish.
Non-Jewish homeschoolers of any faith or belief, including Messianic Jews, Hebrew Christians, and other people who may identify themselves as some form of Jew but who profess a belief that Jesus (or Y'shua) was the Jewish Messiah. Jews of any background who are not also homeschoolers.
If you are a Jewish homeschooler and would like to join the Chevra list, please go directly to the Chevra Sign-up Page and enter your e-mail address and name. You will be added to our list of pending subscribers and sent an automatic response that will tell you some more about our list and what to do next.
Chevra is a support group of parents who are actively homeschooling. While some general questions about the whys and wherefores of homeschooling do occasionally come up, Chevra is not intended to be a primary resource for people who are still in the "considering homeschooling" stage of life. There are some excellent sources for this type of information that may be better aids to you in making your decision, some of which are described below.
This area needs to be thoroughly checked, as most of the resources that used to be here have dried up and gone away.
The Home-Ed mailing list is a venerable list and another source of incredible information about homeschooling. There tends to be a lot of "fluff" and digressions on the list, but an abridged digest of only homeschooling-relevant posts is available. To subscribe to home-ed, go to their web site and follow the directions there.
The print newsletter JHEN (Jewish Home Educator's Network) stopped publishing in 2003. However, back issues exist and my plan is to put them into PDF form and make them available through this web site.
Ther are some general (secular) print publications for homeschoolers. I will verify their current web sites and put them up here.
The intent of this list is to form a friendly and safe atmosphere for mutual support. There are very few topics that should be left off the list. Possible topics for discussion might include:
Note: If you post a recipe, please respect the basic tenets of kashrut and avoid posting about pork, shellfish and meat/dairy combinations.
These are not so much "topics" as types of posts.
Give the original poster the benefit of the doubt before flying off the handle. Assume that they didn't mean their post in the same manner in which you understood it. Different people in different parts of the world (even in different parts of the United States) assign different weights and meanings to the same words. Ask the original author what she or he meant by what she/he said and explain how you interpreted their post. You may find that the author had something completely different in mind or that she/he used a word or phrase in a manner different than you would use the same word or phrase. Give the original poster a chance to explain what they REALLY meant and to apologize for the misunderstanding if necessary.
E-mail is an incredibly dangerous medium for the expression of human emotions. On the one hand, there is the lack of body language and intonation, which accounts for well over 50% of all human face-to-face communication. This makes it all too easy to misunderstand the other person's intentions. On the other hand, there is the possibility of a quick reaction -- type in a hasty response, press SEND, and it is gone. You can't recall it; the damage is done. Mailing lists and newsgroups have torn themselves apart time and time again in this manner. The importance of thinking before you SEND cannot be overstated; nor can the importance of asking for more information if you are hurt or offended on first reading.
Disputes of this nature are best handled privately. If a list member begins or continues a flame war, the list manager may choose to unsubscribe one or both list members after a single warning.
They are abbreviations for common phrases, used to save some typing seconds. Some common MLAs (Multi-Letter Acronyms) are:
B''H Baruch Hashem (Blessed be G-d)
BIL Brother-in-law
BTW By the way
CTTS/D Cute things they say/do
FAQ Frequently asked questions
FIL Father-in-law
FTTS/D Funny things they say/do
FWIW For what it's worth
FYI For your information
IMHO In my humble opinion
IMO In my opinion
JM2CW Just my two cents worth
LOL Laughing out loud
MIL Mother-in-law
OTOH On the other hand
ROTFL Rolling on the floor laughing
SIL Sister-in-law
YMMV Your mileage may vary
Z''L Zichrono Livrocho (Of Blessed Memory)
Not at this time. All new subscribers will be screened by the list manager, but posts will go directly to the entire list. If it is necessary at some future date, the list can become a moderated list and all posts will be screened before they are sent to the list members.
Sure thing!
The list manager will issue one or more warnings, depending on the nature of the violation. For example, failing to trim replies seems a lesser offense than attacking another list member. If no effort is made to stop the violating behavior, the list manager may choose to unsubscribe the violator. At this time, the only offense for which a list member might be unsubbed without warning is an attempt to proselytize or to deny the validity of Judaism.
This is never all right unless you have checked with the original author of a post. All posts are considered to be copyrighted by the original author. Quoting without permission, even if you credit the original writer, is not good netiquette.
The archived posts can only be accessed by list members, and e-mail addresses are not displayed in the archives. But in the end, your privacy is guaranteed only by the adherence of other list members to the list guidelines. We know that some people on this list may know other list members from other connections, including other e-mail lists. Every member of the list should take care that information posted to this list is not shared with other individuals or lists without the original author's consent. If you are on multiple lists with the same people, it can be difficult to maintain this level of privacy, but we should all make the effort to respect other list members' wishes regarding privacy.